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AM ACC 3/21/2019
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Report: Advanced Plastics Recycling Has Potential $10B Impact
Mar 20, 2019 | Recycling Update
By Kelly Maile
A report released today by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, finds the potential economic impact of expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies in the United States to be nearly $10 billion. -
(ACC Mentioned) Advanced Recycling Technologies Could Have $10 Billion Economic Impact, Says ACC Report
Mar 20, 2019 | Plastics Today
By Clare Goldsberry
Chemical recycling, or “upcycling,” has been getting a lot of attention lately. We have written about Loop Industries Inc., which has developed a patented and proprietary technology that decouples polymers from fossil fuels by depolymerizing waste plastic into its base building blocks (monomers) -
(ACC Mentioned) Expanding Us Plastic Recycling, Recovery Tech Worth around $10bn - ACC
Mar 21, 2019 | ICIS
The potential economic impact of expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies in the US stands at around $10bn, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said in a report released on Wednesday. -
(ACC Mentioned) Report: $10B in Potential Economic Output from Plastics Recycling Technologies
Mar 21, 2019 | Waste Dive
A report released by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) finds the potential economic impact of expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies in the United States to be nearly $10 billion. -
(ACC Mentioned) Effects and Damage of Plastic Pollution
Mar 21, 2019 | TNT Magazine
Have you ever put some efforts to make this world at least a bit cleaner? No? How about finding out where we all may end up if we don't take it seriously. What can bring plastic pollution and how does it impact you personally? -
Plastic Trash Backlash Threatens Lean Years for Chemical Makers
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey
The chemical industry is heading for a slowdown as society turns against disposable plastics and the rise of recycling weakens demand, IHS Markit predicted at its annual World Petrochemical Conference. -
(ACC Blog) ACC Welcomes Release of TSCA Prioritization Candidates
Mar 20, 2019 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
We are quickly approaching the third anniversary of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which was signed into law on June 22 of that year after passing Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Touts Prospect of Rules as It Shifts Formaldehyde from IRIS to TSCA
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA is defending its decision to shift its long-running Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of formaldehyde to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program's list of existing chemicals slated for high-priority evaluation... -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Names Priority Candidates for TSCA Evaluations
Mar 20, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has named formaldehyde and sets of chlorinated solvents, phthalates and halogenated flame retardants among the 20 candidates to be designated high priorities for risk evaluation under TSCA. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Advisers Back EPA Strategy on Chemical Vetting (2)
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA’s strategy to include groups of similar chemicals and chemicals for which there is readily available information should help save time as it sorts through 40 chemicals this year, according to chemical industry advisers. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Move Puts Formaldehyde Safety in Hands of Ex-Industry Official
Mar 20, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
The Trump administration is putting research on the health dangers of formaldehyde in the hands of a former chemicals industry official who has worked to enshrine industry’s perspective on chemicals’ safety even as EPA blocks the release of a study by scientist... -
US EPA Proposes 20 High-, 20 Low-Priority Chemicals for Risk Evaluation
Mar 21, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed listing 20 chemicals as high-priority candidates for risk evaluation and 20 as low-priority. -
EPA’s Naming of Formaldehyde as a Candidate for High Priority Under TSCA Raises Serious Concerns
Mar 21, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
EPA’s statement today regarding its inclusion of formaldehyde on the list of chemicals under consideration for prioritization for risk evaluation under TSCA leaves many questions unanswered. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Faults California’s Potential Carcinogen Listing Of Acetaminophen
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
California’s health hazard office is proposing that acetaminophen, which has the brand name Tylenol, be considered for potential listing under the state’s Proposition 65 toxic warning law as a carcinogen, drawing immediate attack from the chemical industry, -
(ACC Mentioned) California Bill Would Ban Multiple Chemicals, Substances In Cosmetics
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
California lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban 20 toxic substances and chemicals from being blended into cosmetics products sold in the state, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), two types of phthalates and triclosan. -
(ACC Mentioned) Hawaii Could Become the First State to Ban Most Plastics at Restaurants
Mar 20, 2019 | CNN
By Michelle Lou and Brandon Griggs
While the Trump administration rolled back environmental protections, Hawaii has doubled down on them. -
(ACC Mentioned) Maritime Community Addresses Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans
Mar 21, 2019 | Cruise and Ferry
By Jeanne Grasso and Joan Bondareff
The world has begun to recognise that plastic pollution in the ocean is not solely, or even mostly, a shipping problem. -
Setting States' Path, New York Eyes First Dioxane Drinking Water Standard
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yochanan
New York's health department is preparing to propose the nation's first enforceable drinking water standard for 1,4-dioxane, a ubiquitous contaminant at waste sites and in drinking water systems, likely setting a path for other states to follow as one industry attorney says it may be the next “headline chemical.” -
EPA’s IRIS Assessment of Hexavalent Chromium Takes Step Forward
Mar 21, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has published a systematic review "protocol" for its assessment of hexavalent chromium under the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) programme. The last time the agency published documents relating to the assessment was in 2014... -
Roundup Case Signals Trouble Ahead for Chemical Companies (1)
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Manufacturers of glyphosate like BASF, Syngenta, and DowDuPont are likely to face increased pressure to warn consumers of the health risks of their products, particularly in the wake of Bayer AG’s loss in a trial over claims its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, an environmental consultant said. -
Toxic Paint Strippers Still Available on Walmart.Com, despite Pledge to Consumers
Mar 20, 2019 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Mike Schade and Jen Dickman
Over the past year, our Mind the Store campaign and coalition partners at NRDC won commitments from 13 top home improvement, big box, and auto-parts retailers to ban the sale of paint removal products containing the hazardous chemicals methylene chloride and NMP... -
There’s No Proof Roundup Causes Cancer But Questions Linger
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lydia Mulvany
The world’s regulators agree that the active ingredient in popular weedkiller Roundup is unlikely to cause cancer. Yet manufacturer Bayer AG keeps losing in court to plaintiffs who say it gave them the disease. -
EU Mulls Restrictions on Microplastics, Other Chemicals
Mar 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Union is asking for public comment on three proposals that would ban some common uses of microplastics, formaldehyde, and siloxanes in products such as make-up and cleaning fluid. -
EU Titanium Dioxide Classification Proposal Hits Waste Obstacle
Mar 21, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The European Commission is looking to amend hazardous waste guidance for titanium dioxide after its proposal to classify only powder forms as a category 2 carcinogen hit a fresh hurdle over waste. -
Senators to Examine National Renewable Energy Mandate, Aide Says
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The Senate energy committee in April will wade back into the debate over a single U.S. mandate for wind, solar, and other renewable energy use—a requirement that has eluded supporters for more than a decade. -
Senate Democrats Press Bernhardt on Offshore Drilling Plans
Mar 20, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
A group of 17 Senate Democrats are calling for acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to state prior to his March 28 confirmation hearing whether he wants to open up additional coastal waters for new oil and gas drilling. -
Federal Judge Demands Trump Administration Reveal How Its Drilling Plans Will Fuel Climate Change
Mar 20, 2019 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the Interior Department violated federal law by failing to take into account the climate impact of its oil and gas leasing in the West. -
Interior Reports Offshore Lease Sale Doubled from 2018
Mar 20, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
Oil companies are piling into the Gulf of Mexico once again, according to federal leasing data. -
Houston’s Shipping Bottleneck Could Curb Expansion of Major US Oil and Petchems Hub
Mar 21, 2019 | Platts
By Kristen Hays
An impasse has emerged between key operators on the Houston Ship Channel, a critical lifeline for growing US energy exports, as thriving activity in both tanker and container shipping has exacerbated competition for space. -
Hill Takes Fresh Look at Obama-Era Clean Power Standard
Mar 20, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The fervor surrounding Democrats' Green New Deal is rekindling congressional interest in a national clean electricity mandate, a top Senate Republican staffer told a renewable energy conference today. -
Trump Ridicules 'Very, Very Expensive' Renewable Energy
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Christa Marshall
President Trump mocked renewable power yesterday, suggesting that wind energy could cause electricity blackouts and lower property values. -
Houston Chemical Blaze Probe Weighed by Federal Investigator
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard and Ben Foldy
Federal and local investigators are weighing a probe of the Houston chemical blaze as hazardous compounds waft near the burned-out site. -
How 5G High-Speed America Jolts Grid Security
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
Picture a very crowded, overheated boxing ring. -
Energy Panel’s Tonko Sets Guideposts for Climate Legislation
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The head of a House energy subcommittee unveiled a set of climate policy principles March 21, sketching out in broad terms what he believes any climate legislation should incorporate. -
Large Manufacturers Want Focus, Funds to Cut Heat-Related Carbon
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Some of the biggest U.S. manufacturers want to ramp up attention, investment, and support for cutting carbon from heating and cooling, which they say is critical to meeting their climate and clean energy targets. -
After Fast Start, a Slowdown for the Green New Deal
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews and Adam Aton
Sen. Chris Van Hollen likes the Green New Deal and plans to soon support its ambitious vision of fighting climate change. -
Solving Climate Change the American Way
Mar 21, 2019 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.)
Global warming is an existential crisis. The overwhelming consensus in the scientific community is that global warming will threaten the prosperity and security of not only every American, but people around the world.
Industry and Association News
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Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Report: Advanced Plastics Recycling Has Potential $10B Impact
Mar 20, 2019 | Recycling Update
By Kelly Maile
A report released today by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, finds the potential economic impact of expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies in the United States to be nearly $10 billion.
According to the report, if advanced plastics recycling and recovery facilities in the U.S. were widely adopted, the processes could result in 40,000 U.S. jobs, as much as $2.2 billion in annual payroll, and $9.9 billion in economic output.
“Advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way we make, use, and reuse our plastic resources,” states Steve Russell, ACC’s vice president of plastics. “These technologies further demonstrate the untapped value of used plastics and have the potential to dramatically accelerate our transition to a circular economy.”
Prepared by ACC’s economics and statistics department, the report updates a similar analysis completed in 2014. The earlier analysis only examined the economic potential associated with converting used plastics into synthetic crude oil. Since then, technologies have “significantly” expanded their range of outputs to meet demand for specific commodities, according to ACC.
The latest report examines a class of advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies known as chemical recycling, which includes pyrolysis and depolymerization. These advanced technologies complement traditional recycling, also known as “mechanical recycling,” and could help society recover and repurpose a much broader range of post-consumer plastics. By bringing used plastics back into the manufacturing system, ACC says the technologies are “a key enabler” in the drive toward a circular economy for plastics.
“Expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery facilities could create thousands of U.S. jobs, result in billions of dollars in economic output and eliminate the landfilling of 6.5 million tons of post-use recoverable plastics each year,” says Priyanka Bakaya, founder and CEO of Renewlogy and chair of the Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance, which commissioned the study.
Several major plastics makers and energy companies have recently announced investments and or agreements with advanced plastic recycling and recovery technology providers, which are helping to demonstrate and scale these processes.
Last May, plastics makers in the United States, Canada, and Europe committed to the goal of recycling or recovering all plastic packaging in these regions by 2040. Such technologies are expected to play a crucial role in meeting these goals.
“Plastic packaging and consumer products weigh less than alternatives, helping to reduce transportation fuel use, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste,” Russell says. “Learning to treat used plastics as a resource has both economic and environmental benefits. Converting more of these materials to valuable products and raw materials will help keep plastic waste out of the environment and in productive use.”
https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/advances-plastics-recycling-chemical-recycling-has-potential-10-billion-economic-impact/
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Mar 20, 2019 | Plastics Today
By Clare Goldsberry
Chemical recycling, or “upcycling,” has been getting a lot of attention lately. We have written about Loop Industries Inc., which has developed a patented and proprietary technology that decouples polymers from fossil fuels by depolymerizing waste plastic into its base building blocks (monomers). The monomers are then filtered, purified and re-polymerized to create virgin-quality polyester plastic suitable for use in food-grade packaging.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) also announced this year an innovative method of plastics upcycling—the Volcat process—which transforms discarded products into new, high-value materials of better quality and environmental value.
While all of this sounds good, what is the economic value of these new processes? How about nearly $10 billion? If widely adopted, advanced plastics recycling and recovery processes could result in nearly 40,000 direct and indirect U.S. jobs, as much as $2.2 billion in annual payroll, and another $9.9 billion in direct and indirect economic output, according to a report released today by the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, DC), Economic Impact of Advanced Plastics Recycling and Recovery Facilities in the U.S.
“Advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way we make, use and reuse our plastic resources,” said Steve Russell, ACC’s Vice President of Plastics. “These technologies further demonstrate the untapped value of used plastics and have the potential to dramatically accelerate our transition to a circular economy.”
Priyanka Bakaya, founder and CEO of Renewlogy and chair of the Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance, which commissioned the study, commented, “Expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery facilities could create thousands of U.S. jobs, result in billions of dollars in economic output, and eliminate the landfilling of 6.5 million tons of post-use recoverable plastics each year.”
Several major plastics makers and energy companies have recently announced investments and/or agreements with advanced plastics recycling and recovery technology providers, which are helping to demonstrate and scale these processes.
Last May, plastics makers in the United States, Canada and Europe committed to the goal of recycling or recovering all plastic packaging in these regions by 2040. Such technologies are expected to play a crucial role in meeting these goals.
“Plastic packaging and consumer products weigh less than alternatives, helping to reduce transportation fuel use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste. Learning to treat used plastics as a resource has both economic and environmental benefits. Converting more of these materials to valuable products and raw materials will help keep plastic waste out of the environment and in productive use,” Russell said.
Prepared by ACC’s Economics and Statistics Department, this report updates a similar analysis completed in 2014. The earlier analysis only examined the economic potential associated with converting used plastics into synthetic crude oil. Since then, these technologies have significantly expanded the range of outputs to meet demand for specific commodities.
The latest report examines a class of advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies commonly known as “chemical recycling,” which includes pyrolysis and depolymerization. These advanced technologies complement traditional recycling, also known as mechanical recycling, and could help society recover and repurpose a much broader range of post-use plastics.
https://www.plasticstoday.com/recycling/advanced-recycling-technologies-could-have-10-billion-economic-impact-says-acc-report/156226197060479
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(ACC Mentioned) Expanding Us Plastic Recycling, Recovery Tech Worth around $10bn - ACC
Mar 21, 2019 | ICIS
The potential economic impact of expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies in the US stands at around $10bn, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said in a report released on Wednesday.
The ACC’s report examines the growing class of technologies that convert used plastics into a range of products and raw materials, such as chemicals and chemical feedstocks for new plastics, lower carbon transportation fuels, and other petroleum-based commodities, it said.
“By bringing used plastics back into the manufacturing system, these technologies are a key enabler in the drive toward a circular economy for plastics,” the ACC said.
If widely adopted, these processes could result in nearly forty thousand direct and indirect US jobs, as much as $2.2bn in annual payroll, and another $9.9bn in direct and indirect economic output, the ACC report titled “Economic Impact of Advanced Plastics Recycling and Recovery Facilities in the US”, said.
Moreover, they could also eliminate the landfilling of 6.5m tonnes of post-use recoverable plastics each year, said Priyanka Bakaya, founder and CEO of Renewlogy and chair of the Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance, which commissioned the study.
Several major plastics makers and energy firms have recently announced investments and/or agreements with advanced plastic recycling and recovery technology providers, which are helping to demonstrate and scale these processes, the ACC said.
In May 2018, plastics makers in the US, Canada and Europe committed to the goal of recycling or recovering all plastic packaging in these regions by 2040. Such technologies are expected to play a crucial role in meeting these goals, it added.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2019/03/20/10336486/expanding-us-plastic-recycling-recovery-tech-worth-around-10bn-acc/
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(ACC Mentioned) Report: $10B in Potential Economic Output from Plastics Recycling Technologies
Mar 21, 2019 | Waste Dive
A report released by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) finds the potential economic impact of expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies in the United States to be nearly $10 billion. The report examines a burgeoning class of technologies that convert used plastics into a range of products and raw materials such as chemicals and chemical feedstocks for new plastics, lower carbon transportation fuels and other petroleum-based commodities. By bringing used plastics back into the manufacturing system, these technologies are a key enabler in the drive toward a circular economy for plastics.
According to the report, "Economic Impact of Advanced Plastics Recycling and Recovery Facilities in the U.S.," if widely adopted, these processes could result in nearly 40,000 direct and indirect U.S. jobs, as much as $2.2 billion in annual payroll and another $9.9 billion in direct and indirect economic output.
"Advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way we make, use and reuse our plastic resources," said Steve Russell, ACC's vice president of plastics, in a statement. "These technologies further demonstrate the untapped value of used plastics and have the potential to dramatically accelerate our transition to a circular economy."
"Expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovery facilities could create thousands of U.S. jobs, result in billions of dollars in economic output and eliminate the landfilling of 6.5 million tons of post-use recoverable plastics each year," said Priyanka Bakaya, founder and CEO of Renewlogy and chair of the Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance, which commissioned the study, in a statement.
Several major plastics makers and energy companies have recently announced investments and/or agreements with advanced plastic recycling and recovery technology providers, which are helping to demonstrate and scale these processes.
Last May, plastics makers in the United States, Canada and Europe committed to the goal of recycling or recovering all plastic packaging in these regions by 2040. Such technologies are expected to play a crucial role in meeting these goals.
"Plastic packaging and consumer products weigh less than alternatives, helping to reduce transportation fuel use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste. Learning to treat used plastics as a resource has both economic and environmental benefits. Converting more of these materials to valuable products and raw materials will help keep plastic waste out of the environment and in productive use," said Russell.
Prepared by ACC's Economics and Statistics Department, this report updates a similar analysis completed in 2014. The earlier analysis only examined the economic potential associated with converting used plastics into synthetic crude oil. Since then, these technologies have significantly expanded their range of outputs to meet demand for specific commodities.
The latest report examines a class of advanced plastic recycling and recovery technologies commonly known as "chemical recycling," which includes pyrolysis and depolymerization. These advanced technologies complement traditional recycling, also known as "mechanical recycling," and could help society recover and repurpose a much broader range of post-use plastics.
https://www.waste360.com/plastics/report-10b-potential-economic-output-plastics-recycling-technologies
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(ACC Mentioned) Effects and Damage of Plastic Pollution
Mar 21, 2019 | TNT Magazine
Have you ever put some efforts to make this world at least a bit cleaner? No? How about finding out where we all may end up if we don't take it seriously. What can bring plastic pollution and how does it impact you personally?How to prevent plastic pollution: factors making this world cleaner
Each holiday in the US we observe the following picture: happy customers go shopping, the range of products is expanding and so is the variety of plastic packaging you can find in the trash after that. Of course, we would wish all this garbage would turn into something new, but the reality is that all the waste left after the holidays and parties is more likely to end up in the landfill or just be burned.
Until 2019 the US and a number of other countries were successfully foisting their waste to China not worrying about its environmental damage. Now, China refused to be the world’s dumping ground of plastic waste bringing a law in order to protect its citizens. However, even before the law took effect, it was calculated that the US recycled only 9% of plastic which is too much to handle even if you carefully sort all the plastic waste. So what is the option? Do not create waste. Whether you need to write an essay on pollution you can rely on BuyEssayFriend.
Plastic pollution effects
One of the advantages of the Chinese ban became the conversation needed so much to improve the recycling processes inside the country and the markets, forcing both public and companies to re-estimate the packaging and damage they cause and consider those products that were previously identified as recyclable. The ban was also used as a wrongful excuse for burning this waste in incinerators that became popular in the US in the late 80s.
They proved to leave a bad impact on the environment and people in the industry and failed the experiment: it is also worth noting that this impact still has serious consequences. That is why manufacturers should limit the production of plastic in such large quantities to prevent increasing asthma rates in the country and just because such incinerators cost the country too much: they are twice expensive than production of solar, wind and nuclear energy.Recycling options
As one of the recycling “methods” were used incineration schemes: people were told to sort the garbage into orange bags which then melted making fossil fuel that can burn. It is called pyrolysis and widely used by the American Chemistry Council and others investing in the current massive use of plastic production. This form is absolutely the opposite to recycling and gives a false sense of safety that single-use plastic can be used further. The easiest option to prevent plastic pollution is to make less plastic: obviously.
An interesting fact is that many American cities have already started fighting with single-use plastic products making laws that forbid their usage. In addition to bans and fines, the cities also force companies to pay for the waste made by their products motivating them to change the processes and minimize it. So the best gift shops can give their customers is the range of products that will not end up in plastic products in a recycling bin.
http://www.tntmagazine.com/lifestyle-career/health-and-beauty/effects-and-damage-of-plastic-pollution
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Plastic Trash Backlash Threatens Lean Years for Chemical Makers
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jack Kaskey
The chemical industry is heading for a slowdown as society turns against disposable plastics and the rise of recycling weakens demand, IHS Markit predicted at its annual World Petrochemical Conference.
After climbing to multi-year highs, chemical earnings will drop this year and won’t recover until 2023 as environmental issues add to the drag from a downturn in the global economy, according to the global research firm.
“Plastic waste I believe is going to be the sustainability issue of our time,” Jim Fitterling, chief executive officer of Dow Inc. and chief operating officer at DowDuPont, said March 20 at the conference. “It represents not only the biggest risk to our industry,” he said, but also “one of the biggest opportunities.”
New plants, primarily in China, will oversupply chemical markets and depress margins, said Dave Witte, an IHS senior vice president. Earnings are likely to plateau at a level below last year’s, he said. Industry demand growth will slow to about 4 percent a year, from 4.4 percent, partly because recycled plastics are replacing virgin resins.
‘License to Operate’
The European Union is leading a global movement to phase out single-use plastics and bolster recycling as society responds to an ocean pollution crisis that threatens the industry’s “license to operate,” Victor Bell, president of Environmental Packaging International, said in a presentation March 19.
At worst, the backlash against plastic could potentially cut the growth in demand for new resin by half, although it probably won’t be that severe because of limits in recycling capacity, according to IHS.
“These waste issues are to some degree existential for the industry,” Witte said March 20.
The chemical industry is best positioned to combat plastic waste by developing new products and innovative ways to recycle, Fitterling said. Product bans are “a slippery slope” that do more harm than good, because plastics bring environmental benefits such as making vehicles lighter and keeping foods fresh longer, he said.
Fitterling helped create the industry’s Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which has pledged more than $1 billion over five years to the effort. A key focus is helping create waste-collection infrastructure around the 10 rivers in Asia and Africa that are the source of most trash pouring into oceans, he said.
Polyethylene, used in shopping sacks and packaging, faces a global oversupply in the near term, while an oversupply of ethylene, a precursor to polyethylene, will come early next decade, Witte said. U.S. plastics makers also will face pressure from natural gas liquids such as ethane, a key raw material, he said. The outlook is relatively better for polypropylene, used in bottle caps and carpets.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/plastic-trash-backlash-threatens-lean-years-for-chemical-makers
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(ACC Blog) ACC Welcomes Release of TSCA Prioritization Candidates
Mar 20, 2019 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
We are quickly approaching the third anniversary of the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which was signed into law on June 22 of that year after passing Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.
To date, EPA has consistently met the law’s key deadlines and requirements and demonstrated the agency’s commitment to effective and efficient implementation of TSCA. Today marks another important milestone for that implementation with the announcement of the next set of potential candidate chemicals for prioritization.
If this is the first time you’re hearing about prioritization, don’t worry. It’s a new feature of the updated law, and we are here to provide you with the important information you need to know!
Prioritization is an important part of the updated TSCA because it is the first step in EPA’s process to evaluate the safety of existing chemicals. The prioritization rule requires the agency to use a risk based screening process to designate chemicals as either high priority, which will undergo further risk evaluations, or as low priority, which the agency determines do not warrant further evaluation. However, the law does provide EPA the authority to require further evaluation of a chemical substance at any time.
As the agency initiates prioritization of potential candidate chemicals, it is required to take at least 50 percent of all high priority designations from the 2014 TSCA Work Plan, with preference given to those chemicals that are:
Highly persistent and bioaccumulative;
Know human carcinogens; or
Have high acute or chronic toxicity.
Beyond those requirements, EPA has the authority to decide which chemicals it will nominate for prioritization. You can find more details about the entire process on EPA’s website.
Below are some of the most important points to keep in mind when considering the prioritization process:
It is important to note that—as EPA has said—designation as a high priority candidate “does not constitute a finding of risk” and should not be cause for concern.
A high-priority designation simply means the agency has nominated the chemical substance for further risk evaluation.
EPA’s Prioritization Rule: “Through the process of prioritization, EPA is ultimately making a judgment as to whether or not a particular chemical substance warrants further assessment.”
Prioritization designations must be based on best available science and weight of the scientific evidence as required by Section 26 of the law.
There will be multiple opportunities for stakeholders to provide relevant information and comments to the agency about potential candidates or proposed chemicals for prioritization including:
A 90 day period at the beginning of the prioritization process, which provides the opportunity for any stakeholder to provide relevant information (e.g., potential hazard, use and exposure information) about a chemical which EPA identifies as a potential candidate as either low or high priority for risk evaluation.
A second 90 day period during which stakeholders can provide comments to EPA on the proposed designation of a chemical as a high or low priority for risk evaluation.
Once EPA initiates the prioritization process on a chemical, EPA must make its final designations as high or low priority in no less than 9 months and no more than 12 months.
Once EPA announces its final designation of a chemical as a high priority for risk evaluation, a three and a half year deadline for completing the risk evaluation begins. During that time, stakeholders will have more opportunities to provide the agency with further information and comments.A final designation of a chemical as a low priority for risk evaluations is treated as final agency action, which can be challenged.
Once a chemical receives a final designation as a high priority, it will undergo a TSCA risk evaluation, which EPA must complete within three and a half years of the final high priority designation. Manufacturers and importers of a final, designated high priority substance must share a $1.3 million fee for the risk evaluation. The law’s aggressive timeline for EPA to complete the risk evaluation impacts the time available for gathering reasonably available hazard, use and exposure information needed to inform a science-based evaluation and, if ordered by EPA, the development of new hazard or exposure information needed for the risk evaluation (e.g., through testing).
In an effort to share costs and promote efficiency to address the requirements of a TSCA risk evaluation, stakeholders can form consortia to collaborate on the development of comments, generate relevant data/information, and meet with EPA to discuss the TSCA risk evaluation. The ACC’s Center for Chemical Safety can serve as the scientific, technical and advocacy hub for providing information and building consortia to help those stakeholders navigate the TSCA prioritization and risk evaluation processes.
Stay tuned to our blog for more updates as TSCA implementation continues!
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2019/03/acc-welcomes-release-of-tsca-prioritization-candidates/
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Touts Prospect of Rules as It Shifts Formaldehyde from IRIS to TSCA
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA is defending its decision to shift its long-running Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of formaldehyde to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program's list of existing chemicals slated for high-priority evaluation, just weeks after telling lawmakers it was dropping the IRIS assessment because it was not a priority.
In a statement announcing its decision to list formaldehyde and 19 other existing chemicals for prioritization for assessment under TSCA as high-priority candidates, EPA's toxics chief said an evaluation under TSCA opens the door to risk management actions that could limit future harms.
“By using our TSCA authority EPA will be able to take regulatory steps; IRIS does not have this authority,” EPA's recently confirmed toxics chief Alexandra Dunn says in a March 20 statement.
But EPA's argument appears to be doing little to satisfy Democrats and environmentalists, who have long pressed EPA to release the draft IRIS assessment, which Democrats say shows that exposure to the substance causes leukemia and other cancers.
“Taking regulatory action against formaldehyde under TSCA is critical, but it should not replace the EPA’s effort to finalize and publicize its near-complete scientific review of the chemical under IRIS,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said in a March 20 statement.
“This study has been promised publicly and suppressed privately for years, and the American people have waited far too long for a better understanding about formaldehyde’s exposure risks and links to dangerous health effects. It’s time for the Trump administration to stop the political gamesmanship and do its job to protect the public from chemicals we know are hazardous to our health.”
Democrats' concerns have been heightened in recent weeks after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) suggested political interference in EPA's priority-setting process that led it to drop formaldehyde from IRIS' agenda. In response, Democrats are seeking an ethics investigation into the top Trump research appointee's role in the IRIS prioritization process.
Environmentalists largely echoed Markey's call for EPA to release the IRIS assessment. “What is absolutely essential is that the IRIS program be able to complete its assessment of formaldehyde, which has been suppressed for the last year and a half by conflicted EPA political appointees,” says Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund. “Then EPA’s TSCA office, just like every other EPA office, can and should rely on it to make regulatory decisions. It’s time that political interference in the agency’s science stop.”
Dunn sought to address concerns that IRIS staff's years of work on the draft assessment would be wasted. “Moving forward evaluating formaldehyde under the TSCA program does not mean that the formaldehyde work done under IRIS will be lost,” she said in the statement. “In fact, the work done for IRIS will inform the TSCA process.”
Denison, however, was not assuaged. “Such consideration is already required by law,” he notes in his statement.
The agency's decision to drop the IRIS assessment is likely to gain additional attention next week as the House science committee has scheduled a March 27 hearing on the IRIS program titled “Reviewing its Progress and Roadblocks Ahead.” Witnesses have yet to be announced.
Risk Finding
While Democrats and environmentalists are disappointed, EPA's decision is a win for the chemical industry, which welcomed the agency's action even as it sought to downplay potential concerns that the new list does not signal any identification of risk. “Prioritization of chemicals for risk evaluations is a new feature of the updated law. Therefore, it is also important to note that neither this announcement nor any final high priority designation represents a finding of risk by EPA,” the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said in a statement. “Rather, that is the role of a TSCA risk evaluation.”
ACC has anticipated that EPA would drop the IRIS assessment and instead assess the chemical's risks under the TSCA program, an action that would likely ensure that its former lobbyist, Nancy Beck, who is now deputy chief of the toxics office, oversees the assessment.
In addition, any assessment under TSCA is likely to be narrower than the shelved IRIS assessment. While IRIS assessments provide risk estimates that can be plugged into risk assessments for various exposure types, the TSCA program is intended to produce risk assessments based on the intended uses of the chemical. The Trump EPA has also determined the assessments will be scoped to generally exclude legacy uses or those uses addressed by other agencies or environmental statutes other than TSCA. Future TSCA actions would preempt regulation of those uses by states.
ACC held a February meeting for producers and users of formaldehyde to prepare for this possibility that the TSCA program would assess formaldehyde -- though a spokeswoman told Inside EPA last month that the group had no information that formaldehyde would be on the list, nor had it requested that EPA add it.
ACC was “just being prepared for any scenario that may move forward,” she said.
Democrats have been calling for the release of the draft IRIS evaluation of formaldehyde for nearly a year, arguing in a letter written last May to former Administrator Scott Pruitt that the draft assessment had been completed for a year at that point, but that political appointees were blocking its release for public comment and peer review because it concluded that formaldehyde exposure could lead to leukemia. Such a finding led to staunch opposition from ACC and other critics when it first appeared in a 2010 draft IRIS assessment.
Andrew Wheeler, EPA's current administrator, told Markey during his confirmation that the IRIS assessment was no longer a priority.
“Because IRIS assessments are major investments in both time and resources, in an August 10, 2018 Memorandum to Agency program offices I requested an update of top priorities for IRIS assessments. Formaldehyde was not identified as a top priority,” he wrote.
As a result, formaldehyde was one of as many as nine pending assessments dropped from IRIS' agenda of chemicals that had been identified by agency staff as priorities for the IRIS program to undertake to support decision-making in various program and regional offices.
Despite Wheeler's statements, EPA's TSCA program has now identified formaldehyde among the second group of chemicals to enter the prioritization process to determine whether a TSCA risk evaluation should be conducted.
It is among 20 chemicals EPA has deemed “high priority candidates” because it anticipates that it will be confirmed a high priority in the process -- triggering the commencement of a three-year risk evaluation by the new TSCA program. The list also includes a group of phthalates and several flame retardant chemicals.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-touts-prospect-rules-it-shifts-formaldehyde-iris-tsca
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Names Priority Candidates for TSCA Evaluations
Mar 20, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has named formaldehyde and sets of chlorinated solvents, phthalates and halogenated flame retardants among the 20 candidates to be designated high priorities for risk evaluation under TSCA.
The announcement, set out in a pre-publication Federal Registernotice, identifies the substances that the agency is proposing to send into the TSCA risk evaluation process. These reviews will begin later this year, as the agency wraps up its first ten evaluations.
The agency has also named 20 candidates for low priority designation and indicated that it is reviewing a manufacturer-requested risk evaluation for two additional phthalates.
Twenty high priority candidates
Seven chlorinated solvents:
1,1-dichloroethane;
1,2-dichloroethane;
1,2-dichloropropane;
o-dichlorobenzene;
p-dichlorobenzene;
trans-1,2- dichloroethylene; and
1,1,2-trichloroethane.
Five phthalates:
butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP);
dibutyl phthalate (DBP);
di-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP);
di-isobutyl phthalate (DIBP); and
dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP).
Three halogenated flame retardants:
4,4'-(1-methylethylidene)bis[2, 6-dibromophenol] (TBBPA);
tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP); and
phosphoric acid, triphenyl ester (TPP).
Other chemicals:
formaldehyde – widely used in making building products and as a preservative;
phthalic anhydride – a chemical intermediate used to make phthalates;
1,3-butadiene – a chemical intermediate, also polymerised to produce synthetic rubber;
ethylene dibromide (EDB) – an intermediate for dyes, resins, waxes and gums, that was historically used as an additive in leaded gasoline. Like the seven chlorinated solvents, a halogenated hydrocarbon; and
1,3,4,6,7,8-hexahydro-4,6,6,7,8,8-hexamethylcyclopenta [g]-2-benzopyran (HHCB or galaxolide) – a fragrance ingredient in commercial and consumer products.
All 20 of the agency’s picks are organic substances drawn from the 2014 update to the TSCA workplan. The statute requires at least half of the substances undergoing risk evaluation to come from that list.
In making its selections, the agency says it surveyed available information to ensure it could complete the prioritisation and evaluation process under the tight deadlines imposed by TSCA.
And remarking on identifying prioritisation candidates at the recent GlobalChem conference in Washington, DC, the EPA’s Joel Wolf said that grouping similar substances provides certain advantages.
He noted, for example, that a proposed risk management rule for the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) was complicated by the fact that many of its alternatives were listed on the TSCA workplan.
"Maybe we should be considering all of the chemicals collectively and making a uniform decision," he said.
Little room for change
The agency’s announcement sets in motion a process that must be completed by 22 December. By then, it must finalise its picks and begin risk evaluations on the designated substances.
In the interim, the agency will hold a 90-day public consultation before formally proposing the high priority substances, with another comment period to follow.
But speaking at GlobalChem, Mark Duvall, a principal at law firm Beveridge & Diamond, pointed out that these consultations are "primarily an opportunity for companies to present information to EPA that it should consider as it conducts a risk evaluation" rather than a chance to sway the selections.
The statute, he pointed out, calls for the prioritisation process to take 9-12 months. This means that 22 March is the last day for the EPA to name candidates and still meet its 22 December deadline. "They effectively are trapped by the fact that they have not named them yet, such that they cannot change the 20 that are going to be identified," he said of the EPA earlier this month.
The likelihood that the agency is not going to name one of these candidates a high priority later this year, he added, is "close to zero".
Risk finding undetermined
In the EPA’s announcement, Alexandra Dunn, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), said that initiating the prioritisation process for a substance "does not mean EPA has determined it poses unreasonable risk or no risk to human health or the environment."
And the sentiment is in line with remarks she made earlier this month about how the agency must "very clearly message" what the prioritisation designation means.
"What we say is that these are chemicals that we think are a high priority and will go into a risk evaluation process. It does not mean that we are saying these are 20 highly risky chemicals," she said at GlobalChem.
But she added: "We have all been around this world long enough to know that anytime you put something on a list, the list takes on a life of its own."
"We want to make sure that everyone knows the context."
The American Chemistry Council added that it is "important to note that neither this announcement nor any final high priority designation represents a finding of risk by EPA. Rather, that is the role of a TSCA risk evaluation."
Priority substances
Under 2016 amendments to TSCA, a high priority substance is one that the EPA determines, without consideration of costs or other non-risk factors, may present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment. The agency must take into account potential hazard and a potential route of exposure under the substance’s conditions of use, including an unreasonable risk to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations (PESS).
A low priority substance, by contrast, is one that the agency concludes, based on "information sufficient to establish", does not meet these criteria.
A formal high priority designation starts the clock on a three-year risk evaluation process, during which the agency must determine if the substance poses an unreasonable risk. A low priority designation means that the substance will not be subject to further risk evaluation at this time.
Low priority candidates
1-butanol, 3-methoxy-, 1-acetateD-gluco-heptonic acid, sodium salt (1:1), (2.xi.)-D-gluconic acidD-gluconic acid, calcium salt (2:1)D-gluconic acid, .delta.-lactoneD-gluconic acid, potassium salt (1:1)D-gluconic acid, sodium salt (1:1) decanedioic acid, 1,10-dibutyl ester1-docosanol1-eicosanol 1,2-hexanediol1-octadecanolpropanol, [2-(2-butoxymethylethoxy)methylethoxy]-propanedioic acid, 1,3-diethyl esterpropanedioic acid, 1,3-dimethyl ester propanol, 1(or 2)-(2-methoxymethylethoxy)-, acetatepropanol, [(1-methyl-1,2-ethanediyl)bis(oxy)]bis-2-propanol, 1,1'-oxybis-propanol, oxybis-tetracosane, 2,6,10,15,19,23-hexamethyl-
https://chemicalwatch.com/75208/epa-names-priority-candidates-for-tsca-evaluations
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Advisers Back EPA Strategy on Chemical Vetting (2)
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The EPA’s strategy to include groups of similar chemicals and chemicals for which there is readily available information should help save time as it sorts through 40 chemicals this year, according to chemical industry advisers.
But Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said the EPA’s decision to take another look at chemicals like formaldehyde and phthalates raises questions about whether it’s focusing on the chemicals of greatest concern.
The Environmental Protection Agency released a list of the chemicals March 20 to decide which half of them would be a high priority to proceed down a pipeline that could lead to restrictions under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Another 20 chemicals are candidates for low priority classification, an off ramp from the possibility of regulation in the near term. The EPA said it would review all the chemicals by Dec. 22.
The agency selected chemicals that are “data rich” because in many cases, other U.S. or international agencies have already examined them, said Jim Cooper, senior petrochemical adviser for American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers.
Three groups of chemicals—at least seven solvents, three flame retardants, and five phthalates, which are a type of chemical generally used to soften plastic—are among the 20 high-priority candidates.
No metals were on the list. Metals, such as lead and arsenic, can be toxic and persistent—criteria that could have prompted the EPA to select them as candidates for risk evaluation.
Other Agencies Have Info
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/industry-advisers-back-epa-strategy-on-chemical-vetting-2
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Move Puts Formaldehyde Safety in Hands of Ex-Industry Official
Mar 20, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
The Trump administration is putting research on the health dangers of formaldehyde in the hands of a former chemicals industry official who has worked to enshrine industry’s perspective on chemicals’ safety even as EPA blocks the release of a study by scientists showing the chemical can cause cancer at extremely low levels of exposure.
EPA said on Wednesday it planned to add formaldehyde to its priority list for evaluation under the country’s primary chemical safety law. If finalized, that move would would start a new years-long review process that public health advocates say would emphasize industry-funded research and discount independent studies looking at the chemical’s effects on human health.
The proposal has raised concerns because a major health assessment of formaldehyde drafted by another division of the agency has been been blocked from release by Trump administration officials for a year and a half. POLITICO reported last year that the assessment from EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System links the chemical with cancers, including leukemia. That assessment has been fiercely criticized by the chemicals industry, which uses formaldehyde in everything from furniture to cosmetics to fertilizer.
An EPA spokesperson declined to answer questions about the status of the IRIS assessment and whether a new review by the agency’s toxics program would supplant it. While IRIS assessments are designed to provide scientific information about chemicals’ risks to all of EPA’s regulatory programs, as well as states and other governments, a review by the toxics program would be of use only to thatEPA office.
In a statement, EPA’s top chemical safety official said the IRIS assessment will not be disregarded if the agency moves forward with reviewing formaldehyde under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, including in any usage limits it may impose.
“In fact, the work done for IRIS will inform the TSCA process. By using our TSCA authority, EPA will be able to take regulatory steps; IRIS does not have this authority,” said Alexandra Dunn, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
Democratic lawmakers, who have for months been pressuring the Trump administration to immediately release the IRIS assessment, said the two efforts should not be mutually exclusive.
“Taking regulatory action against formaldehyde under TSCA is critical, but it should not replace the EPA’s effort to finalize and publicize its near-complete scientific review of the chemical under IRIS,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement.
At the center of the Trump administration’s work on formaldehyde are two political officials who came to EPA directly from chemical industry groups with a stake in the long-running fight over formaldehyde’s dangers.
David Dunlap, who is now the top political official at EPA’s Office of Research and Development, was until August a high-level chemicals expert for Koch Industries, whose subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific LLC, is one of the country’s largest producers of formaldehyde.
Under his ethics agreement, Dunlap voluntarily recused himself from work on formaldehyde. But that agreement wasn’t signed until two and a half months after he began working at the agency — and after he had directed the heads of EPA’s program offices to limit the number of chemicals they asked IRIS to study, according to a Government Accountability Office report and documents obtained by Senate Democrats. That request resulted in formaldehyde being dropped from the program’s priorities in a document that was published on December 19, the same day that Dunlap’s ethics paperwork was dated.
Another EPA official, Nancy Beck, a former top expert for the chemicals industry’s top lobbying group, the American Chemistry Council, has been laying the groundwork for a more industry-friendly approach to reviewing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act since becoming the No. 2 political official in EPA’s chemical safety office in 2017.
A key component of the effort is a complex set of rules released last summer laying out how EPA's TSCA program is to assess the range of sometimes conflicting scientific studies on a chemical to determine whether it poses a danger.
Those rules, crafted by Beck, have raised alarm among environmental groups who say they will elevate industry-backed research and limit the use of studies looking at the effects of chemicals on human health.
In comments on the rules, 20 public health groups said the document was “less about evaluating the quality of evidence, and more about eliminating it altogether.”
The TSCA program’s procedures for reviewing scientific evidence differ greatly from the IRIS program’s rules, which have been endorsed by the National Academies of Sciences. The Trump administration committed in January to having the academies review the TSCA rules, but has not yet submitted them. A spokesperson said the agency has started discussions with the academies to inform next steps.
Watchdogs fear that the Trump administration is shifting work on formaldehyde to the EPA toxics office in order to procure an assessment of the chemical that downplays the health risks identified in the IRIS assessment.
“The reason this is happening now, I believe, is so that the assessment can be taken out of the career science office and the career scientists that had been overseeing it to date, and put it into the hands of a conflicted political appointee who can work her magic to make risks go away,” said Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund.
The American Chemistry Council, Beck’s former employer, which has pushed back strongly on the IRIS study of formaldehyde, on Wednesday welcomed a review of formaldehyde under the TSCA program.
“The [ACC Formldehyde] Panel fully supports a risk review of the uses of formaldehyde chemistry by means of transparent science-based standards that include a weight-of-evidence approach and consider the best-available science to draw conclusions,” Kimberly White, a senior director at ACC who was appointed by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, said in a statement.
The IRIS assessment, which has been in the works for more than two decades, has been slowed a number of times amid opposition from the chemicals industry and congressional Republicans. In 2004, even after the National Cancer Institute had issued preliminary findings linking the chemical with leukemia, Sen. Jim Inhofe(R-Okla.) convinced EPA to delay its release. Current EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler was on Inhofe’s staff at the time.
In a statement to POLITICO, Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said Wednesday's decision by EPA “is just another delay.”
“I continue to call on EPA to act in the public interest and to stop wasting taxpayer dollars by working to immediately review, finalize and publish the formaldehyde report instead of kicking the can even further down the road,” he said.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/article/2019/03/epa-move-puts-formaldehyde-safety-in-hands-of-ex-industry-official-1286072
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US EPA Proposes 20 High-, 20 Low-Priority Chemicals for Risk Evaluation
Mar 21, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed listing 20 chemicals as high-priority candidates for risk evaluation and 20 as low-priority. The EPA is required to finalize those designations by December under amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) enacted in 2016.
High-priority chemicals will be subject to a 3-year risk evaluation, to inform the EPA whether certain uses of a chemical pose an unreasonable risk to human health and the environment. Low-priority chemicals will not be subject to further risk evaluation.
The 20 high-priority candidates include seven chlorinated solvents, six phthalates, four flame retardants, formaldehyde, a fragrance additive, and 1,3-butadiene, which is used in manufacturing polymers. The agency chose all 20 low-priority candidates from a list of chemicals determined to meet the EPA’s criteria for Safer Choice, a program intended to help manufacturers identify product ingredients that are safer for human health and the environment.
Environmental groups and some Democrats in Congress are concerned that the EPA is further delaying the release of its human health risk assessment of formaldehyde by moving the chemical under TSCA instead of finalizing an assessment conducted by the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. The EPA completed, but did not release a draft of that IRIS assessment in the fall of 2017, according to lawmakers. That draft assessment showed a link between leukemia and formaldehyde exposure. The agency has yet to finalize the formaldehyde IRIS assessment, and it is unlikely to do so anytime soon. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that the EPA has stopped its IRIS work on formaldehyde.
“Moving forward evaluating formaldehyde under the TSCA program does not mean that the formaldehyde work done under IRIS will be lost,” Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in a statement. “In fact, the work done for IRIS will inform the TSCA process. By using our TSCA authority EPA will be able to take regulatory steps; IRIS does not have this authority,” she noted.
THE US EPA SELECTED THESE 20 CHEMICALS AS HIGH-PRIORITY CANDIDATES FOR RISK EVALUATION:
Seven chlorinated solvents
Six phthalates
Four flame retardants
Formaldehyde
1,3,4,6,7,8-hexahydro-4,6,6,7,8,8,-hexamethylcyclopenta[g]-2-benzopyran (HHCB), a fragrance additive
1,3-butadiene, used in manufacturing polymers
https://cen.acs.org/policy/chemical-regulation/US-EPA-proposes-20-high20/97/i12
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EPA’s Naming of Formaldehyde as a Candidate for High Priority Under TSCA Raises Serious Concerns
Mar 21, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
Statement of Dr. Richard Denison, Lead Senior Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund
“EPA’s statement today regarding its inclusion of formaldehyde on the list of chemicals under consideration for prioritization for risk evaluation under TSCA leaves many questions unanswered.
EPA states that ‘the work done for IRIS will inform the TSCA process.’ Such consideration is already required by law.
What is absolutely essential is that the IRIS program be able to complete its assessment of formaldehyde, which has been suppressed for the last year and a half by conflicted EPA political appointees. Then EPA’s TSCA office, just like every other EPA office, can and should rely on it to make regulatory decisions.
It’s time that political interference in the agency’s science stop.”
– Dr. Richard Denison, Lead Senior Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund
For more information see the following EDF blog post: The Trump EPA’s actions on formaldehyde can be summed up in one word: Corrupt.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/03/20/epas-naming-of-formaldehyde-as-a-candidate-for-high-priority-under-tsca-raises-serious-concerns/
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Faults California’s Potential Carcinogen Listing Of Acetaminophen
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
California’s health hazard office is proposing that acetaminophen, which has the brand name Tylenol, be considered for potential listing under the state’s Proposition 65 toxic warning law as a carcinogen, drawing immediate attack from the chemical industry,
“This proposed Prop. 65 listing is yet another example that will lead to consumer confusion and complex compliance challenges for businesses of all sizes,” a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council (ACC) says in an email comment to Inside Cal/EPA. “In this case, the Prop. 65 label would undermine the role of physicians, pharmacists and other health care professionals who help people make informed decisions about their health care.”
The state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) March 15 published a notice that it has selected acetaminophen for review by the Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC), which is part of the office’s Science Advisory Board. The announcement initiates the development of hazard identification materials by OEHHA staff.
The notice also began a 45-day data call-in period where parties can submit materials to the office, which ends April 29. The materials can include cancer bioassays, cancer epidemiological studies, genotoxicity testing, and other pertinent data on pharmacokinetics, biomarkers and effects on biochemical and physiological processes in humans.
Hazard identification materials for acetaminophen will be presented at a future meeting of the CIC for consideration of listing under Prop. 65, the notice adds.
OEHHA’s proposal may draw nationwide attention and potential mainstream media coverage, similar to when last year a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that companies selling coffee in California must provide Prop. 65 warnings because of exposure to acrylamide, which the office has listed as a carcinogen under the law.
In response to widespread uproar over the ruling, OEHHA proposed a regulation clarifying that cancer warnings are not required for coffee under the law because any exposures to acrylamide are too limited to pose cancer risks. However, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are challenging OEHHA’s proposed rule.
The ACC spokesman says the potential acetaminophen listing could undermine the Food & Drug Administration’s “regulatory authority to ensure drug safety and availability. Even if a product never carries a Prop. 65 warning, the mere listing of a product can cause unnecessary concern about it.”
More broadly, Prop. 65 “often fails to provide consumers with meaningful information, causes unnecessary alarm for them, and leaves businesses exposed to costly and unnecessary litigation when they are actually in full compliance with the law,” the spokesman adds. “States have a role to play in promoting public health, and consumers have a right to clear, accurate, and meaningful information about the products they buy, which is why it is so important for California to take the necessary steps to reform Prop. 65.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-faults-california%E2%80%99s-potential-carcinogen-listing-acetaminophen
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(ACC Mentioned) California Bill Would Ban Multiple Chemicals, Substances In Cosmetics
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
California lawmakers have introduced a bill that would ban 20 toxic substances and chemicals from being blended into cosmetics products sold in the state, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), two types of phthalates and triclosan.
The measure is expected to be opposed by cosmetic and chemical product manufacturers, and a chemical sector spokesman says the legislation appears to be unnecessary given existing state chemicals programs.
“Toxic chemicals that cause cancer or reproductive harm have no place in any consumer products, especially those that adults and children alike apply to their bodies every day,” said Susan Little, senior California advocate for government affairs of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), one of the groups sponsoring the legislation, in a March 19 press release. “This common-sense proposal is exactly what is needed to clean up the cosmetics aisle so that Californians can be assured their makeup, soap and shampoos don’t include harmful chemicals.”
The bill, AB 495 authored by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) and Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), was amended March 18 to reflect the latest version.
The measure, which is co-sponsored by the consumer rights group CALPIRG, states that cosmetics products containing toxic chemicals such as mercury, lead, phthalates, formaldehyde, triclosan and the fluorinated compounds known as PFAS are “adulterated cosmetics” that may not be sold in California, the release says.
“Many cosmetics companies are already reformulating their products to exclude these dangerous chemicals, but it’s important to establish a floor other companies can’t drop below,” said EWG President Ken Cook.
If the measure becomes law in California, it could mean safer cosmetics products across the country, Cook said. “No cosmetics CEO would make a product with a cancer-causing chemical ingredient that could not be sold in California, the fifth-largest economy in the world."
The list of chemicals or substances contained in the bill are: asbestos; lead; dibutyl phthalate and diethylhexyl phthalate; formaldehyde; seven formaldehyde “releasers”; mercury and related compounds; four parabens -- isobutylparaben, isopropylparaben, butylparaben and propylparaben; toluene; triclosan; carbon black; and fluorinated PFAS compounds.
AB 495 would also expand the enforcement authority of the Department of Public Health’s California Safe Cosmetics Program by requiring that the program report cosmetics containing any of the listed chemicals to the state attorney general (AG). The AG would then be required to investigate and potentially pursue financial and criminal penalties in court.
A spokesman with the American Chemistry Council says that while council members are reviewing the specifics of AB 495, the bill appears unnecessary and inappropriate because such chemicals should be reviewed by the state’s Safer Consumer Products green chemistry program overseen by the Department of Toxic Substances Control.
“California already has a process in place to do exactly what this legislation is intending to do,” the spokesman says, which “brings multiple stakeholders to the table to determine the risks that chemicals in consumer products pose and if a viable and effective alternative is available.”
Further, “It does not make sense for the legislature to circumvent a program that they created and completely ignore the determinations made by qualified experts,” the spokesman adds.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/california-bill-would-ban-multiple-chemicals-substances-cosmetics
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(ACC Mentioned) Hawaii Could Become the First State to Ban Most Plastics at Restaurants
Mar 20, 2019 | CNN
By Michelle Lou and Brandon Griggs
While the Trump administration rolled back environmental protections, Hawaii has doubled down on them.
The Aloha State has passed ambitious laws to curb environmental damage, including banning certain sunscreens that can harm coral reefs and committing to the Paris climate accord's goals.
Now Hawaiian lawmakers are trying to get rid of single-use plastics in eateries across the state.
The state legislature is considering a bill that would prohibit restaurants and government agencies from using plastic items, including bottles, straws, utensils and foam containers, by 2022.
The lawmakers behind the bill say plastic waste is becoming a growing problem across the islands and that debris cleanup is costly for taxpayers.
State Sen. Mike Gabbard, one of the bill's sponsors, said reducing single-use plastics is the logical next step to protecting Hawaii's natural resources, a big tourism draw.
"We're surrounded by an ocean and our beaches and coastlines are a huge part of our daily lives," Gabbard said. "So going big reducing on single-use plastics makes a lot of sense and is doable."
If the legislation is enacted, Hawaii would become the first state to institute such a progressive statewide ban on plastics, according to the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The bill has already passed the Senate and two House committees.
"This nation-leading legislation positions Hawaii to comprehensively tackle litter and ocean pollution that stems from single-use plastics -- which provide a momentary convenience but remain an environmental burden for a century or more," NRDC senior attorney Eric Goldstein said.
Parts of Hawaii have already banned some plastics
Fighting plastic isn't new to Hawaii.
The state became the first in the US to ban plastic bags in all counties in 2015.
In addition, two islands -- Maui and Hawaii, the Big Island -- have already banned polystyrene foam containers. Another bill in the Hawaii legislature is looking to expand these bans and prohibit polystyrene foam food containers statewide.
The efforts come amid growing concerns about trash -- much of it plastic -- fouling the Earth's oceans. A massive pile of garbage in the Pacific Ocean is now three times the size of France.
But restaurateurs are concerned about the cost
Hawaiian restaurant owners are concerned that banning plastics would increase costs for customers.
"Abrupt changes for change's sake doesn't solve anything other than increases costs to the consumers," says Victor Lim, a restaurant owner and Hawaii Restaurant Association legislative chair. "We are sensitive about our environment but we would like a longer-term solution to this mega problem."
The American Chemistry Council, a trade association of chemical manufacturers, urged the legislature to instead consider recycling instead of banning plastics outright.
"We should be developing a circular economy for plastics," the group said. "We encourage the legislature to look at alternative approaches that would increase recycling and recovery in communities across the islands and educate individuals on the responsible use of plastics, such as adopting straw 'upon request' guidelines."
However, Gabbard pointed to the more than 200 restaurants in Hawaii that have already eliminated foam containers and plastic bags.
"Restaurants are already moving in the right direction," he said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/20/us/hawaii-plastic-restaurants-ban-trnd/index.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Maritime Community Addresses Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans
Mar 21, 2019 | Cruise and Ferry
By Jeanne Grasso and Joan Bondareff
The world has begun to recognise that plastic pollution in the ocean is not solely, or even mostly, a shipping problem. However, it is gratifying to see that the maritime community has stepped up to do what it can to address the growing threat to marine life, which can ingest or become entangled in plastic debris. In October 2018, this recognition took the form of a new action plan adopted by the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) to address plastics in the marine environment. The action plan is built on the commitment by the IMO to meet the targets set forth in the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14), which is to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”
The action plan, set forth in MEPC Res.310(73), consists of the following major elements, among others, described in greater detail below:
1. Reduction of marine plastic generated from fishing vessels
2. Reduction of shipping’s contribution to marine plastic pollution
3. Improvement of port reception facilities
4. Enhanced public awareness, education and seafarer training
5. Improved understanding of the contribution of ships to marine plastic pollution
6. Strengthened international cooperation.What role does shipping play in the world’s plastic pollution?
The shipping community is subject to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). Annex V of MARPOL contains regulations addressing garbage management and strictly prohibits the discharge of plastics. In 2013, new regulations went into effect that imposed stricter garbage management procedures and documentation requirements for all vessels, as well as fixed and floating platforms and a general prohibition on the discharge of all garbage unless the discharge is expressly provided for under the regulations. The new regulations allow the limited discharge of only four of categories of garbage: food waste, cargo residues, certain operational wastes not harmful to the marine environment, and carcasses of animals carried as cargo. Under the prior regulations, discharge of garbage into the sea was generally allowed unless specifically prohibited or limited. In 2018, Annex V was strengthened further, changing the criteria for determining whether cargo residues are harmful to the marine environment and revising the Garbage Record Book to include a new category for electronic waste.
Many cruise lines have adopted their own standards to control garbage beyond those contained in Annex V. For example, the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), a trade association representing more than 50 cruise lines encompassing over 90% of global cruise capacity, adopted a comprehensive waste management policy, which its members must follow. Some major cruise lines have gone beyond the CLIA policies and agreed to eliminate plastic straws and other single-use plastics. In October 2018, the European Parliament voted for a complete ban on a range of single-use plastics across the European Union (EU) to help prevent ocean pollution. The ban includes plastic cutlery and plates, straws, drink stirrers and balloon sticks. The EU intends for it to go into effect across member nations by 2021.
At the grassroots level, in September 2018, the Ocean Cleanup Project deployed its 2,000-foot long Ocean Cleanup System OO1 to pick up the plastic found in the famed – or infamous – Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is twice the size of the State of Texas. Known as Wilson, the system is designed to pick up the plastic before it degrades into microplastics. Unfortunately, in late December 2018, the clean-up system malfunctioned and was taken back to port but is expected to become operational again in 2019. Finally, some Caribbean nations have decided to ban or impose taxes on plastics and Styrofoam. Barbados, for example, is banning the import, use and sale of single-use plastics as of 1 April 2019, following the lead of Antigua, Barbuda, Grenada and St. Lucia.
These are just some examples of what is happening worldwide to combat the plastic pollution crisis in the oceans.
Congress investigates the sources of marine debris
US Congress passed, with strong bipartisan support, the ‘Save Our Seas Act of 2018’ (SOS Act), which was signed into law on 11 October 2018. Among other things, the SOS Act reauthorises the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine debris programmes for five years. It calls on the Administration to: support research on materials that reduce derelict fishing gear and solid waste from land based sources that enter the marine environment; work with foreign countries that discharge the largest amounts of solid waste from land-based sources into the marine environment to reduce such discharges; and work with those countries to conclude one or more new international agreements to mitigate the discharge of land-based solid waste into the marine environment. By requiring the US State Department to enter into international agreements, the SOS Act recognises that the problem is larger than garbage entering the oceans from ships.
The US Congress has also held hearings on marine debris. In September 2018, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing at which industry witnesses and non governmental organisations testified about marine debris. Opening statements from the John Barrasso, State Senator of Wyoming, and Tom Carper, State Senator of Delaware, recognised the scope of the issue and committed to taking new action. This was also echoed by Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who is working on an expanded version of the SOS Act, called ‘SOS2,’ with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island for introduction this year in the 116th Congress. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) witness stated that “while marine debris is a huge problem, it is also a solvable one.” The ACC has set a goal of ensuring that 100% of plastic packaging is recyclable or recoverable by 2030. Similarly, the Coca Cola Corporation witness committed to a multi-year investment to make its packaging 100% recyclable by 2025.
Land-based sources of marine debris and the role of IMO’s action plan
On 21 November 2018, The New York Times reported about a beached whale in Indonesia containing 1,000 pieces of plastic in its stomach. This story and photo gained worldwide attention, particularly in Indonesia, which had been labelled one of the major sources of marine pollution. Subsequently, Indonesia, one of the top six plastic waste producers, set a goal of reducing plastic waste by 70% by 2025 and set aside US$1 billion per year to combat the problem. v
The IMO action plan addresses the main sources of marine plastics pollution and gives the shipping community a key role in addressing them. Some of the more specific tasks in the action plan and associated responsibilities for Member States regarding implementation follow:
1. Fishing gear
Consider making mandatory, through an appropriate IMO instrument, the marking of fishing gear with an IMO Ship Identification Number, in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. In addition, consider the development of best management practices to facilitate incentives for fishing vessels to retrieve derelict fishing gear and deliver it to port reception facilities.2. Reduce shipping’s contribution to marine plastic pollution
Review the application of placards, garbage management plans and garbage record-keeping and consider making the Garbage Record Book mandatory for ships of 100gt and above (now, the requirement only applies to vessels greater than 400gt), working with the IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee.3. Improve the effectiveness of port reception facilities
Encourage Member States to implement their obligation to provide adequate facilities at ports and terminals for the reception of garbage. The lack of adequate port reception facilities is a serious problem in the Caribbean and other developing countries and would require international financial commitments to do this effectively.4. Enhance public awareness, education and seafarer training
Review fishing vessel personnel training to ensure they receive basic training on marine environmental awareness focused on marine plastic pollution. IMO’s MEPC is to work with the Human Element, Training and Watchkeeping Subcommittee to review training under the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers.5. Improve understanding of the contribution of ships to marine plastic pollution
Conduct a study on marine plastic pollution, including macro and microplastics from all ships and encourage member states to share results of the research. The MEPC is to work with the FAO, the United Nation’s World Ocean Assessment and the Regional Seas Convention to accomplish this task.6. Strengthen international cooperation
Work with other United Nation’s agencies, such as FAO and the United Nations Environment Program, which are active in marine plastic litter and cooperate with the Global Partnership on Marine Litter.Another key element of the action plan will be to review the existing regulatory regime to identify gaps that might require new legislation and regulations.
Call to action
The maritime community is stepping up to address its role in combatting marine plastics debris by adopting IMO’s action plan and taking additional stringent actions either independently or through industry trade associations. While the action plan is voluntary at this point, it is a blueprint for how the maritime community and countries can do their part to reduce marine plastics debris in conjunction with other United Nation’s organisations and member states.
The action plan recognises that the maritime community continues to have a role to play in reducing plastics that enter the marine environment – even though there is recognition that the major sources of marine plastics debris come from land-based sources. All countries producing plastic and waste have a part to play in solving this problem. Finally, as citizens of the world and lovers of clean oceans, we urge everyone to do their part to minimise single-use plastics in their daily lives.
Jeanne Grasso is the vice chair of Maritime and International Trade Practice at Blank Rome, and Joan Bondareff, Of Counsel, Maritime and International Trade Practice Group at Blank Rome.
http://www.cruiseandferry.net/articles/maritime-community-addresses-plastic-pollution-in-the-worlds-oceans
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Setting States' Path, New York Eyes First Dioxane Drinking Water Standard
Mar 20, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yochanan
New York's health department is preparing to propose the nation's first enforceable drinking water standard for 1,4-dioxane, a ubiquitous contaminant at waste sites and in drinking water systems, likely setting a path for other states to follow as one industry attorney says it may be the next “headline chemical.”
The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) is currently weighing a December recommendation from its water quality council to set an enforceable drinking water standard, or maximum contaminant level (MCL), of 1 part per billion (ppb) for 1,4-dioxane.
According to a (NYSDOH) press release, New York's Drinking Water Quality Council -- formed to address emerging drinking water contaminants -- was initially tasked with developing MCLs for 1,4-dioxane and two per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
The recommended 1 ppb MCL for 1,4-dioxane, if codified, would require water system monitoring, reporting and mitigation for exceedances, it says.
A health department spokesman says the standard is not delayed, but that the department's chief, who headed the drinking water council, is now reviewing the recommendations, and can either accept them or amend them.
Any rule would then be published in the state register and undergo a 60-day public comment period, the spokesman says.
While EPA and numerous states have guideline levels for dioxane in drinking water and groundwater, New York's measure, if codified, would be the first such MCL -- an enforceable standard -- for the chemical.
The pending state measure marks the latest effort from officials and others to impose liability -- and recoup cleanup costs -- for the substance's release as manufacturers and users of the chemical face lawsuits alleging product liability, negligence and other tort actions as well as allegations of violating federal hazardous waste law.
The substance was used as a stabilizer in solvents and paint strippers, though that use was phased out under the Montreal Protocol which phases out ozone depleters, according to a November 2017 technical fact sheet from EPA.
But due to that use, it has been identified at many federal facilities, the fact sheet says. The chemical can also be found in detergents and personal care products.
The federal agency, however, has not yet set an MCL. Walter Mugdan, EPA deputy administrator for Region 2, told an American Legal Institute-Continuing Legal Education (ALI-CLE) environmental law conference in Washington, D.C., last month that while there is widespread dioxane contamination, “It's rather difficult to treat, so that's a problem.”
Routine Monitoring 'Advisable'
EPA mandated monitoring between 2013 and 2015, which detected the substance in 21 percent of public water systems and found it in nearly seven percent of systems at levels exceeding EPA's drinking water cancer risk level of 0.35 parts per billion (ppb), according to slides that Thomas Mohr, a former California regulator who is now a private consultant, presented last September to the American Water Works Association (AWWA).
The slides say the high detection rate and low EPA advisory level and low state levels “make routine monitoring for [dioxane] advisable.”
The agency has deemed the chemical a likely human carcinogen and says it is a likely contaminant at many sites contaminated with certain chlorinated solvents as it was used as a stabilizer for these, particularly 1,1,1,-trichloroethane, or TCA, the fact sheet says.
The fact sheet adds that the chemical can move quickly from soil to groundwater.
While the contaminant appears to be prevalent in systems in the eastern half of the United States as well as California, Long Island, NY, has been particularly hard hit because the sandy soil there makes it vulnerable to the substance reaching groundwater, one dioxane expert says.
According to one recent news report, Long Island water suppliers estimate they will need to spend $840 million in order to treat 1,4-dioxane in their water supply.
In addition, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) last October announced $200 million in grant funding to aid communities in responding to PFAS and 1,4-dioxane in drinking water, according to the NYSDOH press release.
Other water utilities are turning to the courts to recoup treatment costs. Bethpage Water District in Nassau County, NY, earlier this month sued manufacturers, distributors, retailers and promoters of dioxane and dioxane-containing products as well as entities associated with Northrop Grumman Corporation that disposed of and released substances containing dioxane near the water district's service area.
In Bethpage Water District v. The Dow Chemical Company, et al., filed March 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the county says it is taking mitigation measures to respond to the presence of 1,4-dioxane in its production wells such as wellhead treatment due to defendants' “tortious conduct."
Bethpage alleges numerous torts, including product liability, negligence and public nuisance, but also contends that the Northrup Grumman defendants' waste handling “may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health and the environment” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
The county contends water customers continue to be exposed to the harm posed by the chemical in their tap water. It says the court should hold these defendants “strictly, jointly, and severally liable for all such damages."
Industry attorneys suggest such suits are likely to be the first of many likely to be filed. “Over the next several years, dioxane manufacturers, distributors, and users should anticipate more regulatory and court actions concerning the compound,” lawyers Doug Curran and David Tripp, a former EPA regional counsel, warned in a 2018 alert from the law firm Stinson Leonard Street.
They noted that litigation over the chemical as well as EPA's risk evaluation “strongly suggest that 1,4-dioxane . . . may become a headline chemical."
And one industry attorney suggests the trajectory of the dioxane issue will mirror that of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), which led to widespread groundwater contamination.
As with MTBE, where common law litigation targeted manufacturers and others involved in its use, water districts have already begun to sue under common law and other statutes against 1,4-dioxane manufacturers and users.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/setting-states-path-new-york-eyes-first-dioxane-drinking-water-standard
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EPA’s IRIS Assessment of Hexavalent Chromium Takes Step Forward
Mar 21, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has published a systematic review "protocol" for its assessment of hexavalent chromium under the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) programme. The last time the agency published documents relating to the assessment was in 2014, when it published preliminary materials for public comment.
Systematic review is a method for bringing together information from multiple sources to answer specific questions. The protocol describes how the agency will conduct the assessment.
A 45-day public comment period will run from 15 March to 29 April and the agency will hold a public science meeting webinar on 24 April.
The assessment will update the one published by the EPA under the IRIS programme in 1998.
The EPA’s Office of Water (OW) and the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM) have both identified hexavalent chromium as a priority substance.
According to the agency’s announcement, hexavalent chromium is used in:
· chrome plating;
· production of pigments, including textile dyes, printing inks and glass compounds;
· production of stainless steel;
· production of leather;
· "drilling muds"; and
· chemical synthesis.
The substance is also widely used as a corrosion inhibitor, particularly in water-cooled systems.
Hexavalent chromium is a substance of very high concern (SVHC) under EU REACH on account of carcinogenicity and mutagenicity. Companies must obtain authorisation to use it.
https://chemicalwatch.com/75218/epas-iris-assessment-of-hexavalent-chromium-takes-step-forward
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Roundup Case Signals Trouble Ahead for Chemical Companies (1)
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sylvia Carignan
Manufacturers of glyphosate like BASF, Syngenta, and DowDuPont are likely to face increased pressure to warn consumers of the health risks of their products, particularly in the wake of Bayer AG’s loss in a trial over claims its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, an environmental consultant said.
A jury in San Francisco federal court decided March 19 that Bayer’s weed killer caused a man’s cancer, something Bayer has disputed.
Glyphosate, an ingredient in Roundup, has been declared a probable human carcinogen by an arm of the World Health Organization, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in 2017 that the ingredient is unlikely to cause cancer in humans at current exposure levels.
Cases like that one “are being driven by extreme exposure conditions,” Deborah Proctor, principal scientist at ToxStrategies Inc. in Mission Viejo, Calif., said at the Association for Environmental Health and Sciences Foundation’s annual West Coast conference March 20.
But the public is exposed to some glyphosate through produce grown with herbicides and from other sources, she said at the conference in San Diego.
Multiple Product Lines
“Glyphosate is used in so many products you might not even be aware of” them all, she said.
New studies on the toxicity of the chemical and its residues in food are being released regularly, Center for Food Safety science policy analyst Bill Freese said in an email.
“Regardless of this particular verdict, state and local governments will come under increasing pressure to restrict glyphosate use,” he said. “We’re even more likely to see action in the commercial sphere—already big retailers like Home Depot are feeling pressure to stop carrying Roundup.”
Because of the weed killer’s widespread use and California’s determination that glyphosate can cause cancer, companies beyond manufacturers may be liable for failing to warn people of the chemical’s risks, Proctor said.
“We are disappointed with the jury’s initial decision, but we continue to believe firmly that the science confirms glyphosate-based herbicides do not cause cancer,” Chris Loder, a spokesman for Bayer, said in an emailed statement.
The case is In re Roundup Prod. Liab. Litig., N.D. Cal., No. MDL 2741, 3/19/19.cq
—With assistance from Adam Allington.
(Adds statement from Bayer in third paragraph.)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/roundup-case-signals-trouble-ahead-for-chemical-companies-1
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Toxic Paint Strippers Still Available on Walmart.Com, despite Pledge to Consumers
Mar 20, 2019 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Mike Schade and Jen Dickman
Amazon moves quickly to remove toxic paint strippers for sale on its website
Over the past year, our Mind the Store campaign and coalition partners at NRDC won commitments from 13 top home improvement, big box, and auto-parts retailers to ban the sale of paint removal products containing the hazardous chemicals methylene chloride and NMP at over 30,000 stores across North America and the world.
Over the past few months, we’ve been following up, visiting stores and websites to see how retailers have followed through on their policy commitments. You can read here about our previous research visiting Lowe’s, The Home Depot, AutoZone, Sherwin-Williams, and Kelly-Moore Paints stores.
More recently, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families staff and our campaign partners have visited Walmart stores as well as Walmart.com and Amazon.com to see how both retailers have followed through on their commitments. Walmart pledged to phase out the sale of toxic paint strippers by February and Amazon made the same commitment effective March 1. As two of the largest retailers in the U.S. and the world, it’s critical for Walmart and Amazon to properly implement their policies to ensure these harmful products don’t end up in more homes or workplaces.
Our new investigation revealed that both retailers were still selling dozens of paint removal products containing methylene chloride and NMP, even after they pledged to stop doing so. To their credit, Amazon staff promptly removed all products we identified less than 48 hours after we brought them to their attention. Unfortunately, Walmart is still selling dozens of paint strippers containing methylene chloride and NMP, although they have removed some.
We appreciate and applaud the commitments both retailers have made and believe it is critical for both to ensure their policies are meaningfully implemented and enforced so that unsuspecting customers don’t buy hazardous products. It is also important for both to ensure their suppliers don’t move to regrettable substitutes, such as these products containing GreenScreen Benchmark-1 chemicals of high concern.Walmart still selling hazardous paint removal products
On March 11, we sent Walmart staff a list of 47 paint strippers for sale on Walmart.com, all via third parties, that definitely or likely contained methylene chloride or NMP. That list included:
· 21 product pages for paint strippers that definitely contained methylene chloride, including one sold at a discount and another labeled as currently out of stock;
· 9 product pages for paint strippers that may have contained methylene chloride, including 2 on clearance & sold at a discount;
· 6 product pages for paint strippers that definitely contained NMP; and
· 11 product pages for paint strippers that may have contained NMP.
We were pleased that the company removed all the products from their website by the next day, except for one product: Klean-Strip Klean Kutter Refinisher.
After further research, to our surprise, we identified 42 additional product pages with paint or coating strippers being sold on Walmart.com that definitely or likely contain methylene chloride or NMP. We sent those to Walmart on March 14:
· 10 product pages for paint strippers that definitely contain methylene chloride, including 9 sold by third parties on Walmart.com and 1 sold by Walmart labeled as out of stock**;
· 20 product pages for paint strippers that may contain methylene chloride, all sold by third parties on Walmart.com, with 2 sold at a reduced price and 1 labeled as out of stock;
· 8 product pages for paint strippers definitely containing NMP, including 7 sold by third parties on Walmart.com, one of which is sold at a reduced price, and 1 sold by Walmart;
· 2 product pages for coating strippers containing NMP, all sold by third parties on Walmart.com, one of which is on clearance and sold at a reduced price; and
· 2 product pages for paint strippers that may contain NMP, sold by third parties on Walmart.com.
We later identified one additional product, which we shared with the company on March 15.
Unfortunately, none of these additional product pages have been removed from the website as of this posting.
Our coalition partners also visited 18 Walmart stores in 13 states. Two stores visited (one in Chicago, IL and one in Portland, OR) were still selling a paint stripper with methylene chloride or NMP. We greatly appreciate the work of our partners at the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) and other organizations for their assistance in visiting Walmart stores in many of these states.
Walmart should act quickly to investigate these paint removal products and remove all containing methylene chloride and NMP, both from online (especially from third-party sellers) and in-store stock. The company should also investigate all other paint removal products that are currently sold (and any new products it adds going forward) to ensure the products are in compliance with its own policy.Paint strippers found on Amazon.com; company promptly removes them
We also found many paint strippers containing methylene chloride and NMP still being sold on Amazon.com even after its restriction went into place. We identified 59 product pages on Amazon.com with paint or coating stripper products that either definitely or likely contained methylene chloride or NMP. This count included different sizes or different sellers of the same item. To its credit, the company removed all of the products’ pages within 48 hours after we sent them to Amazon staff on March 18. We had identified:
· 16 product pages for paint strippers that definitely contained methylene chloride, including 2 sold directly by Amazon;
· 4 product pages for pure or high purity methylene chloride products where the web page mentioned paint stripping, including one product listed as currently unavailable;
· 20 product pages for paint strippers that likely contained methylene chloride, including 3 sold by Amazon (one of those three was temporarily out of stock);
· 5 product pages for coating strippers that likely contained methylene chloride;
· 3 product pages for paint strippers that definitely contained NMP; one of these was a product sold by Amazon that was temporarily out of stock;
· 1 product page for a coating stripper that definitely contained NMP;
· 6 product pages for paint strippers that may have contained NMP; and
· 4 product pages for coating strippers that may have contained NMP.
Since we found these products on Amazon.com after its March ban went into place, it is important for the company to follow up to ensure that its policy is meaningfully implemented and enforced, especially for third-party sellers, so that no other paint removal products containing methylene chloride or NMP are sold through Amazon.com now or in the future.Retailers must follow through on commitments to stop selling dangerous products
These and other retailers must follow through on the commitments they made to ensure their policies are being properly implemented. All retailers who sell to consumers will have to stop selling methylene chloride paint strippers 240 days after the recently finalized EPA ban is published in the Federal Register.
This new in-store research underscores why we need federal action and enforcement by the EPA to ensure that no toxic paint strippers remain on store shelves for consumers or workers.
In the meantime, consumers and workers should remain vigilant. Until these and other retailers’ policies are fully implemented and EPA bans these products for both consumers AND workers, Americans should exercise caution when purchasing paint strippers to ensure they don’t contain these dangerous chemicals. Safe and effective alternatives are available; learn more in our updated factsheet.
** Information about the availability of any product listed is likely to change after the posting of this blog.
https://saferchemicals.org/2019/03/20/toxic-paint-strippers-still-available-on-walmart-com-despite-pledge-to-consumers/
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There’s No Proof Roundup Causes Cancer But Questions Linger
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lydia Mulvany
The world’s regulators agree that the active ingredient in popular weedkiller Roundup is unlikely to cause cancer. Yet manufacturer Bayer AG keeps losing in court to plaintiffs who say it gave them the disease.
So is glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weedkiller, really dangerous?
There’s no proof that the chemical causes cancer in humans. Regulators in the U.S., European Union and elsewhere have said it probably isn’t a carcinogen, and more than 800 studies back that up, including an epidemiological study undertaken by the National Cancer Institute that found glyphosate use wasn’t associated with overall cancer risk. Tina Levine, a former director of the Health Effects Division of the Office of Pesticide Programs in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said human health concerns were minimal.
However, the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France, part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as a “probable” carcinogen in 2015, in a lower level risk category that includes many other common substances including red meat. Despite the inconclusiveness, that’s what has opened the door to the lawsuits farmers and other heavy users of the chemical are bringing.
The translation of IARC’s classification is that it’s something “to keep an eye on and limit exposure to, because there may be a link to some other carcinogenic stimulus,” said Ricardo Salvador, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ food and environment program.
It’s not just farmers who spray billions of pounds of glyphosate annually that should pay attention to glyphosate. Because it’s used in such great quantities, the chemical is now ubiquitous, and “you’ll find it wherever you go measuring for it,” Salvador said, whether that’s in food or in humans. Trace amounts have been found in everything from ice cream to orange juice. There’s a new, emerging area of study that’s looking at the impacts of long-term exposures at low levels, according to Salvador.
Little is known about chronic exposure to glyphosate at small amounts.
“We don’t have sufficient data, so let’s get the data,” Salvador said. “The jury is still out, not because we don’t know the experiments to do, but because the questions are new.”
Glyphosate has been a blockbuster product for Monsanto Co. since it was introduced in the 1970s. The vast majority of U.S. corn and soybeans have been genetically modified to withstand it, making it a critical component of modern farming. Bayer bought Monsanto last year for $63 billion.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/theres-no-proof-roundup-causes-cancer-but-questions-linger
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EU Mulls Restrictions on Microplastics, Other Chemicals
Mar 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Union is asking for public comment on three proposals that would ban some common uses of microplastics, formaldehyde, and siloxanes in products such as make-up and cleaning fluid.
The restrictions, under the EU’s REACH chemicals law, are expected to be finalized in about a year and would have varying impacts on producers. One trade group argued the ban on some uses of siloxanes, used to make silicone polymers, could end up harming the environment down the line.
The proposals would ban the use of certain siloxanes in products like cosmetics and cleaning agents above 0.1 percent by weight, the European Chemicals Agency said March 20.
When it comes to microplastics, the proposal would prevent companies from intentionally adding them to products including cosmetics and cleaning fluids above a presence of 0.01 percent by weight.
Plastic microbeads are used for their abrasive or exfoliating functions in cosmetics and cleaning products, but take hundreds of years to fully break down once released into the environment.
For formaldehyde, which is used as a preservative in plywood and other wood panels, the restriction would make it illegal to sell in the EU products that release the substance above 0.124 miligrams per cubic meter of air in a standard test.
Comments on all three proposed EU restrictions can be submitted through May 20, and the final rules would be published in Annex XV of REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals).
Polymer Problems
The microplastics restriction would affect imported cosmetics. EU producers have already pledged to phase out their use by 2020, alongside some cleaning products and controlled-release pesticides and fertilizers, which employ polymer coatings that break down in soil.
The restriction on siloxanes would affect the chemicals octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane, decamethylcyclopentasiloxane, and dodecamethylcyclohexasiloxane, known respectively as D4, D5, and D6.
There are no direct substitutes for the substances in cosmetics but they could be phased out because “many cosmetic products within the same product category do not contain D4, D5 or D6,” the European Chemicals Agency said.
Eve Bille, a spokeswoman for industry group CES-Silicones Europe, which represents companies including Evonik Industries AG and Wacker Chemie AG, referred Bloomberg Environment to a previous statement on the proposed REACH restriction.
The statement said limitations on D4, D5 and D6 could deter their use in a range of emerging, lower-carbon technologies with a “net negative result for the environment.”
‘Intelligent’ Formaldehyde Limits
The proposed formaldehyde restriction was an “intelligent idea” that would be in line with restrictions already adopted by some EU countries, including Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Lithuania, said Kris Wijnendaele, technical director of the European Panel Federation.
EU producers of wood panels already meet the limit and the restriction would “keep high-emission imported products off the market—who knows what those things are emitting,” Wijnendaele said.
Flatpack furniture specialist Ikea complies “with the strictest applicable laws and regulations on all our sales markets” on formaldehyde, and would not be affected by the restriction, spokesman Mattias Hennius told Bloomberg Environment March 20.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/eu-mulls-restrictions-on-microplastics-other-chemicals
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EU Titanium Dioxide Classification Proposal Hits Waste Obstacle
Mar 21, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
The European Commission is looking to amend hazardous waste guidance for titanium dioxide after its proposal to classify only powder forms as a category 2 carcinogen hit a fresh hurdle over waste.
In its latest update of the proposal in late January, the Commission restricted the classification mainly to mixtures in powder form, arguing that titanium dioxide-induced carcinogenicity is only associated with inhalation.
That resulted in delays to the substance's CLP entry, amid accusations from NGOs that the Commission has diverged from Echa's Risk Assessment Committee (Rac) Opinion for the classification of all forms of the substance.
The REACH Committee had been expected to decide on the issue following a stakeholder consultation earlier this year, but the vote was twice postponed due to member state concerns. Its last meeting on 7 March underlined concerns over waste: how to handle waste containing titanium dioxide when it can be in powder, solid or liquid forms.
The Commission is now preparing a draft amendment of the hazardous waste guidance to clarify "whether and how to classify" waste containing titanium dioxide as hazardous, according to EU executive sources.
It aims to work with member states to achieve a solution during one of the next REACH Committee meetings, they added. The Commission expects the issue to be addressed in 2022 during the waste legislation review in the hazardous waste annex.
The next REACH Committee meeting is scheduled for 8-9 April.
The Commission's updated proposal has faced a backlash from NGOs. In a letter prior to the 7 March meeting, they urged member states to reject the proposal, which set "a dangerous precedent" and offered derogations that "could possibly be considered illegal". The Classification Labelling and Packaging Regulation (CLP) requires health hazards to be made on purely scientific basis.
Different route
Meanwhile, the Titanium Dioxide Manufacturers Association (TDMA) is campaigning for a different regulatory route to control the risks associated with the substance.
CLP classification is not the answer, it says, as the chemical only poses a threat if large amounts of dust particles are inhaled, which is "not a realistic scenario" under normal circumstances. Furthermore, it adds, in most downstream uses the substance is bound into another solid or mixture and not "available to inhale".
The substance itself is non-toxic and the "lung overload effect" is not a risk for consumers, the trade body argues, noting that this was also the conclusion of experts in a Commission meeting in April 2018.
TDMA notes that Rac in its opinion had referred to different forms of the particles, not other forms of the substance such as liquids.
Since the substance is only manufactured as powder, CLP classification could result in a mismatch between risk and regulation.
"It's a complex case that requires a different approach," TDMA chair Robert Bird told Chemical Watch. Downstream and waste regulations do not distinguish between the different routes of exposure and if Rac's opinion is translated into CLP "you create a lot of downstream issues that are not related to the inhalation concern."
Other regulatory approaches, such as workplace legislation, would better address the concerns, he said. The substance is also separately regulated through the Cosmetics Regulation for personal care applications.
The Commission sources said their position has not changed and that the Commission is still pursuing classification under CLP of the powder form of the substance.
Tatiana Santos, chemicals policy manager at NGO the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) said some countries were no longer in favour of the proposal after the Commission's latest derogations.
If approved, a decision to keep cancer warnings off labels of spray-on sunscreen, cosmetics and spray paints containing titanium dioxide would be a "flat rejection of science for commercial reasons" and a "reward" for industry lobbyists, EEB has said. It argues that the products can "end up" being inhaled.
https://chemicalwatch.com/75209/eu-titanium-dioxide-classification-proposal-hits-waste-obstacle
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Senators to Examine National Renewable Energy Mandate, Aide Says
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The Senate energy committee in April will wade back into the debate over a single U.S. mandate for wind, solar, and other renewable energy use—a requirement that has eluded supporters for more than a decade.
Ideas circulating in the Senate include a renewable mandate as high as 80 percent, though over what time period is unclear, Kellie Donnelly, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s chief counsel, said March 20.
Energy Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) plans another climate change hearing in April, where the issue of a national clean energy standard is likely to be raised, Donnelly said at the American Council on Renewable Energy’s policy forum in Washington.
A so-called national “renewable portfolio standard,” which would direct states to get a certain portion of their power from wind, solar, and other renewable sources, has been discussed since the George W. Bush administration but failed to become law.
Without a federal standard, 29 states as well as Washington, D.C., and three territories now have renewable mandates in place, according to a February report from National Conference of State Legislatures.
“In a sense the clean energy standard, from a federal energy perspective—it’s time hadn’t come” as far as Congress was concerned, “and the states filled that” vacuum, Murkowski said in February.
Many Republicans Opposed
Many congressional Republicans say top-down federal requirements should be avoided and should remain in states’ hands.
But renewed interest in addressing climate change, particularly in the Democratic-controlled House, has drawn more attention to a federal standard. The Green New Deal, an ambitious climate and clean energy platform, calls for the U.S. to set a 100 percent target for renewable energy over a single decade.
Murkowski, who is critical of the Green New Deal, said in February that her committee would proceed cautiously on any proposals to revisit a national standard.
“I think this is where you have the hearings to determine where we have got some momentum on some of these initiatives,” she said.
Obama Target
President Barack Obama proposed an 80 percent clean energy target by 2035 in his State of the Union address in 2011, though his proposal would have allowed states to use not just wind, solar, and nuclear energy but also clean coal and natural gas to meet that threshold.
“It is pretty complicated,” Donnelly said at the ACORE forum.
She said still unresolved for any proposal is “what are the timetables and targets, what are the resources that qualify” under any federal standard as renewable energy; how to account for states’ existing renewable targets, and the roles of the Energy Department and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in implementing or overseeing a federal standard.
“I haven’t seen that legislation that I understand is under development,” she said. “Perhaps it will be at the 80 percent level, but I don’t know what the final year is” for when states would have to hit the renewables target, she said.
“But I think that is something that the energy committee is will consider [and] I’m sure members will be talking about it at our next climate change hearing” sometime in April, she said.
Action From Both Chambers
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) is among those readying a federal mandate for the 116th Congress, and has previously backed a 30 percent renewable target by 2030. In the House, Rep. Peter Welch (Vt.), a senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is planning legislation of his own.
Sarah Webster, vice president for investor relations, government relations, and corporate communications for California-based Pattern Energy, a renewable energy generator, said a federal standard could serve to significantly curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to help address climate change, while creating a new wave of demand for renewable energy.
“If done right, it could do more for decarbonization and deployment of renewables than carbon regulation,” said Webster, who was also on the ACORE panel.
“So I think it has to be something that is on the table if we’re intellectually being honest about the challenges we’re facing.”
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/senators-to-examine-national-renewable-energy-mandate-aide-says
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Senate Democrats Press Bernhardt on Offshore Drilling Plans
Mar 20, 2019 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
A group of 17 Senate Democrats are calling for acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to state prior to his March 28 confirmation hearing whether he wants to open up additional coastal waters for new oil and gas drilling.
The letter, led by Sens. Bob Menendez (N.J.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.), asks Bernhardt whether he supported expanding drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans, as well as of Florida's coast in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
It further asks him how the department would weigh the climate change impacts from the move, and to promise to meet with affected governors and coastal communities.
"The Department of the Interior has received many bipartisan requests to remove all planning areas in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico, from the next draft of the five-year plan," the senators wrote. "The American people deserve to know your plan for the Outer Continental Shelf before the Senate votes on your nomination."
Signatories of the letter included presidential hopefuls Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Kamala Harris (Calif.), as well as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.).
Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is expected to release its final five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan in the coming weeks.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Federal Judge Demands Trump Administration Reveal How Its Drilling Plans Will Fuel Climate Change
Mar 20, 2019 | Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin
A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the Interior Department violated federal law by failing to take into account the climate impact of its oil and gas leasing in the West.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of Washington could force the Trump administration to account for the full climate impact of its energy-dominance agenda, and it could signal trouble for the president’s plan to boost fossil fuel production across the country. Contreras concluded that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management “did not sufficiently consider climate change” when making decisions to auction off federal land in Wyoming to oil and gas drilling under President Barack Obama in 2015 and 2016. The judge temporarily blocked drilling on about 300,000 acres of land in the state.
The initial ruling in the case, brought by the advocacy groups WildEarth Guardians and Physicians for Social Responsibility, has implications for oil and gas drilling on federal land throughout the West. In the decision, Contreras — an Obama appointee — faulted the agency’s environmental assessments as inadequate because they did not detail how individual drilling projects contribute to the nation’s overall carbon output. Since greenhouse gas emissions are driving climate change, the judge wrote, these analyses did not provide policymakers and the public with a sufficient understanding of drilling’s impact, as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
“Given the national, cumulative nature of climate change, considering each individual drilling project in a vacuum deprives the agency and the public of the context necessary to evaluate oil and gas drilling on federal land before irretrievably committing to that drilling,” he wrote.
Asked about the decision Wednesday, Interior Department spokeswoman Molly Block said in an email, “We do not comment on ongoing litigation."
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R) criticized the ruling in a statement, and suggested that the state might appeal it.
“We will be exploring options and following up with our state, federal, and industry partners,” Gordon said. “Our country’s efforts to reduce carbon should not center on the livelihoods of those committed workers and industries who seek to provide reliable and affordable energy, especially when we don’t look to the detrimental effects of other expansive industries. Bringing our country to its knees is not the way to thwart climate change.”
Contreras did not void the leases outright, but instead ordered the bureau to redo its analysis of hundreds of projects in Wyoming.
Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma, whose group is one of the defendants in the case, said in a phone interview that she was confident that the ruling could be overturned on appeal. She noted that the Obama and Trump administrations had conducted similar climate analyses in their leasing documents, and that it was impossible to predict the cumulative impact of these auctions because just under half of all federal land leased for drilling is eventually developed.
“This judge has ignored decades of legal precedent in this ruling,” she said. “The judge is basically asking BLM to take a wild guess on how many wells will be developed on leases, prematurely.”
Jeremy Nichols, who directs WildEarth Guardians’ climate and energy program, said in a phone interview that the decision would force the administration to reveal how its policies are helping to fuel climate change. He said his group would take steps to try to block federal oil and gas lease auctions scheduled in the coming week, which encompass an additional 511,000 acres of western land.
“It calls into question the legality of the Trump administration’s entire oil and gas program,” Nichols said. “This forces them to pull their head out of the sand and look at the bigger picture.”
Federal oil, gas and coal leasing — both on land and offshore — accounts for a quarter of America’s total carbon output, according to a report issued last year by the Interior Department’s U.S. Geological Survey. Oil and gas drilling accounts for about 40 percent, or 500 million metric tons, of that total.
Last month, a U.S. magistrate judge in Montana ordered the agency to redo its environmental impact analysis of mine expansion on federal land there to reflect factors including the climate impacts of moving the coal by rail and the economic impact of climate change spurred by the burning of coal mined on site.
University of Chicago clinical law professor Mark Templeton, who filed an amicus brief in the case involving Montana’s Spring Creek Coal mine, said federal law imposes these procedural requirements to give the public and federal officials a better sense of what’s at stake in these decisions.
“We all know climate change is bad, in broad scale and scope,” he said, adding that when it comes to Tuesday’s case, “What this ruling shows is individuals in government are making decisions that contribute to climate change, and therefore they need to be considering those effects when they’re making those decisions.”
Even if Contreras’s decision stands, however, it may not block the administration’s energy agenda. Although BLM would be required to disclose the overall climate impact of its leasing decisions, it could still go ahead and open those lands up for development.
While the Interior Department began to take into account the climate impacts of federal oil, gas and coal leasing toward the end of Obama’s second term, administration officials jettisoned those plans when President Trump took office.
The agency lifted Obama’s moratorium on federal coal leasing. The White House also slashed the projected economic damage that stems from burning fossil fuels from about $50 per ton under Obama to between $1 and $7 per ton. The numbers are based on cost-benefit analyses for rules affecting methane leaks from oil and gas operations on public land, as well as pollution from coal-fired power plants. Trump officials reached a lower estimate by excluding climate effects outside the United States and by putting a reduced emphasis on how global warming will affect future generations.
The Trump administration is working to overhaul a 2016 policy that requires federal agencies to assess the global climate impact of their actions.
Trump and several of his top deputies have dismissed recent federal findings that the United States and other countries must curb their carbon output in the next decade or face potentially disastrous consequences from climate change. In a draft analysis last year of its plan to freeze fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration projected that if the United States continued on its current path, the globe could warm by 7 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. It suggested that this trend illustrated why curbing carbon emissions would make little difference to the planet.
Even though Tuesday’s ruling eventually could be overturned, proponents of oil and gas drilling cautioned that it could still have a chilling effect on development out West.
“Any time there’s a ruling that sows more uncertainty on federal land, that has a ripple effect not just on these leases in question, but throughout the entire federal onshore system,” Sgamma said.
And Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement: “This bad decision will hurt workers in Wyoming, reduce revenue for the state and slow America’s energy production."
Darryl Fears and Brady Dennis contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/20/federal-judge-casts-doubt-trumps-drilling-plans-across-us-because-they-ignore-climate-change/?utm_term=.ef45cac6a1d5
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Interior Reports Offshore Lease Sale Doubled from 2018
Mar 20, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
Oil companies are piling into the Gulf of Mexico once again, according to federal leasing data.
An offshore lease sale held in New Orleans Wednesday drew $244.3 million in winning bids, almost double what a similar lease sale in March 2018 drew.Recommended Video
"Today's lease sale shows strong bidding by established companies, which indicates that the Gulf of Mexico will continue to be a leading energy source for our nation long into the future," Interior Assistant Secretary Joe Balash said in a statement.
After years in the doldrums, oil prices have stabilized over the last 12 months. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, was trading for $59.09 a barrel on Monday, a few dollars down from the same time last year but up from less than $40 per barrel in 2016.
After recording less than $130 million in winning bids at a lease sale last March, the Interior Department recorded almost $180 million in high bids at an auction in August.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Interior-reports-offshore-lease-sale-doubled-from-13704232.php?cmpid=ffcp
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Houston’s Shipping Bottleneck Could Curb Expansion of Major US Oil and Petchems Hub
Mar 21, 2019 | Platts
By Kristen Hays
An impasse has emerged between key operators on the Houston Ship Channel, a critical lifeline for growing US energy exports, as thriving activity in both tanker and container shipping has exacerbated competition for space.
Before August 2018, fog shutdowns were the main hindrance to ship traffic in and out of Houston, the second-largest petrochemical port in the world. However, that month the first container ship to exceed 1,100 feet in length traversed the 23-mile stretch between the entrance to the channel and one of the port’s two container terminals, facing no oncoming traffic, while outbound tankers were forced to sit and wait until it docked.
It was the first of 10 such ships with length and width too large to safely allow two-way traffic. All ships normally flow freely toward each other in the channel and veer around one another in a carefully orchestrated move dubbed the “Texas Chicken” to maintain consistent two-way traffic.
According to the Houston Pilots, who oversee ship traffic safety in the channel, the bigger container ships cannot safely veer around tankers because they essentially become 54% wider when at an angle. All other oncoming traffic – whether waiting to get in or leave the channel – must stand down for up to 10 hours or more until the container ship passes.
For companies that load and unload crude, refined products and liquid chemicals – as well as those who produce natural gas liquids – such traffic interruptions resulting from container ship arrivals are unacceptable. They say it could jeopardize export growth and chill investment throughout the entire 52-mile-long channel to Galveston that is home to nearly 300 facilities, including refineries, chemical plants, storage tanks and support infrastructure like pipelines, rail, import/export terminals and trucks.
“Reliable exports are absolutely critical to the energy value chain – and maintaining two-way traffic is essential to that reliability,” Enterprise Products Partners CEO Jim Teague told a Texas Senate committee in early March.
Port officials concede the importance of two-way traffic and insist that larger container ships will not cause frequent interruptions because they expect only about 19 to arrive in 2019. However, that estimate could change. The port authority has also rejected proposals from liquids operators for a moratorium on larger container ships until all sides have more time to study the issue, and a limit of one per week because two could possibly show up at the same time.
“We have container folks saying if we put a restriction on it, they’ll stop sending larger ships to Houston. That’s great for energy, but not necessarily for containers,”. Ric Campo, the newly appointed chairman of the Port of Houston Commission, told the same Texas Senate committee on March 6.
Both sides agree the ultimate solution is widening the of the 530-foot-wide channel to at least 750-800 feet to accommodate two-way traffic that includes larger container ships. However, such a project would likely cost billions of dollars and require Congress to provide federal funds – which can take years, if not decades.
The US Army Corps of Engineers is in the fourth and last year of a $10 million study examining whether it would be feasible to deepen and widen the channel, but it could be just an incremental step in a years-long process while two-way traffic interruptions continue.
Even if channel operators try to pool resources to widen the channel without federal funds, the Army Corps must first deem it a valid project, and it could take up to five years. Steve Kean, CEO of Kinder Morgan, said liquids operators need a solution now.
“It’s a little bit like there’s a fire in the house,” Kean said. “We don’t want to let the entire house burn down before we do something about it.”
So both sides are at impasse without a short-term solution that satisfies all, and the liquids operators have turned to the Texas Legislature to intervene. Multiple bills are pending that could limit or block arrivals of larger container ships, as well as address what the coalition sees as a conflict of interest with the port authority’s dual role as owner of the container terminals – benefiting from their cash flow – and regulator of the entire channel.
Enterprise and Kinder Morgan, both major ship channel operators, with millions of barrels of liquids storage, export capabilities, pipelines and production facilities, are among 13 companies that banded together to form the Coalition for a Fair and Open Port, which wants certainty of consistent two-way traffic to ensure that all Houston Ship Channel exports can grow in tandem with onshore production growth.
Campo agreed that uncertainty “kills business,” but said new laws could lead to unintended consequences from restrictions in the future, and port officials fear a moratorium could prompt bigger container ships to bypass Houston permanently.
Growth all around
Houston is the top US crude oil exporter, shipping out about 2.5 million b/d. The Energy Information Administration expects US crude production to average 12.3 million b/d in 2019 and 13 million b/d in 2020. Most of that growth will be in the vast Permian Basin in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico, where projected output of 3.9 million b/d in 2019 could double by 2025. The EIA also expects the US will be a net crude and petroleum product exporter by late 2020.
“All that stuff needs to get from where it is to a place where it can get on a vessel,” Kean told the Texas Senate committee. “If the Permian doubles, we need the Houston Ship Channel to be able to take on more. There’s a conflict of interest when you have a port that is regulating us, but also is in business and competing for the scarce resources of access to the Houston Ship Channel.”
The port also is the top US polyethylene resin exporter, alongside startups of more than 13.67 million mt in PE capacity from 2017-2027, more than 76% of which is or will be in Texas and Louisiana. Of the total, 23% is in operation – most of that at or near the ship channel.
Both sides in the Houston Ship Channel dispute also have strong competition from other ports to handle growing crude and resin output.
The Port of Corpus Christi has spent years marketing itself as an alternative to Houston for energy exports, highlighting its proximity to the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas as well as the Permian Basin. While the port exports less than 1 million b/d currently, Carlyle Group is investing $400 million in a project awaiting regulatory approval to deepen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel to accommodate Very Large Crude Carriers that can hold up to 2 million barrels of oil.
Industry sources note that, unlike Houston, Corpus Christi offers primarily exports and few other options for crude. Houston offers exports, more storage and refineries, as well as pipelines that can move oil further east to plants in Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, and to Louisiana. Channel operators want to boost their export market share on the back of crude production growth, and they say they need consistent two-way traffic to do it.
Container competition too
On the container side, ports in Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; New Orleans and Los Angeles are enticing PE producers and traders to send some plastic pellets their way for export. Of 4.3 million mt PE exports in 2018, 2.67 million mt were waterborne, with most shipped out of Houston and those ports. Of volumes exported by these five, Houston’s share fell to 74% in 2018 from 87% in 2017 while flows from the other four showed gains, according to US International Trade Commission data.
Houston exported 308,270 containers packed with resins and plastics in 2018 – nearly 30% of all containers and up 20.7% from 2017 – mostly on ships that did not disrupt two-way traffic, according to port data.
And pressure has been on for Houston’s container terminals to compete. The port answered concerns about a lack of consistent empty container availability by soliciting more imports, bringing loaded import containers to parity with loaded exports. The competitors, particularly Los Angeles and ports on the East Coast, are primarily import centers and can accommodate even larger container ships, which are growing in size amid ocean carrier consolidation.
“We know ultimately that we are going have more of those ships and we know ultimately we’re going to have more petrochemical exports and those exports are going to require bigger and more ships as well,” Campo said.
Growth at stake
However, the coalition contends that the vast majority of ship channel business involves liquids and natural gas, and those interests cannot be jeopardized by two-way traffic disruptions. In 2018, 71% of 18,790 ships that traversed the channel involved energy – 55% tankers, 10.5% natural gas and 5.6% barges. Of the rest, 11.1% were container ships, according to Houston Pilots data.
The US’ recent shale boom sharply accelerated the channel’s importance to the emergence of the US as a global energy supplier. In 2011, the US started moving out more refined products than it consumed. The lifting of a decades-old domestic crude export ban in 2015 allowed US oil to flow freely into global markets. And seemingly boundless cheap feedstock ethane reversed the once-downtrodden US chemical industry’s fortunes, spurring tens of billions of dollars in new infrastructure to turn that overabundant feedstock into export-bound resins and other petrochemicals.
But bottlenecks caused by larger container ships could send more outflows to competitors. “It’s the biggest sponge,” Enterprise’s Teague said. “You have water access through one of the most important waterways in the world – unless we screw it up.”
https://blogs.platts.com/2019/03/21/houston-shipping-bottleneck-oil-petchems/
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Hill Takes Fresh Look at Obama-Era Clean Power Standard
Mar 20, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The fervor surrounding Democrats' Green New Deal is rekindling congressional interest in a national clean electricity mandate, a top Senate Republican staffer told a renewable energy conference today.
Legislation to establish a clean energy standard is being drafted, Kellie Donnelly, the chief counsel for Republicans on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said during a panel discussion at the American Council on Renewable Energy policy conference in Washington, D.C.
She did not identify the sponsors but said she expects the bill to be a topic of discussion at a follow-up climate change hearing that the committee is planning for April.
"We are starting to talk more about the clean energy standard again, and I think it absolutely will be part of the conversation," Donnelly told the conference.
It's been largely absent from the congressional energy debate in recent years, but a clean electricity mandate was a major focus of Democrats when they controlled both chambers of Congress a decade ago.
The Waxman-Markey comprehensive climate bill that passed the House in 2009 included a renewable energy standard (RES) mandating that 20 percent of U.S. electricity be produced from renewables by 2020. A broad energy bill that passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that year with bipartisan support set the standard at 15 percent by 2021, but a leadership plan to join it with climate legislation on the floor never materialized.
In 2011, President Obama shifted the debate by proposing in his State of the Union address a national clean energy standard (CES) of 80 percent by 2035, with the list of qualifying energy sources broadened to include nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. That was an overture to congressional Republicans, who were skeptical of Democrats' all-renewable mandate.
Donnelly noted that Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), respectively the chairman and ranking member of the committee at the time, received more than 200 submissions to a white paper they released about how to structure Obama's proposal, but the two parties were too far apart to agree on a bill.
"At the end of the day, we weren't able to get there at the staff level," she said. "This is a different Congress, these are different members, and so I very much expect it to be part of the conversation."
Donnelly said she had not seen the bill being drafted but said it may mirror Obama's 80 percent requirement. She was unaware of the bill's deadline for meeting the requirement.
"I'll be interested to see how they deal with some of the issues that are associated with the CES, including what are the timetables and targets and what are the resources that qualify and what are the ones that don't," she said. "How do you deal with existing state programs? Who runs the programs — is it DOE, or is it FERC? It's pretty complicated."
The Senate last voted on a national electricity mandate in 2015, when Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) offered an amendment to legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline that would have established a federal RES of 25 percent by 2025. Udall's bid failed 45-53.
The prospect of a CES was welcomed by other panelists this morning, who said it would be an effective mechanism for reducing carbon emissions.
"A CES done right could do more for deep decarbonization and deployment of renewables than carbon regulation," said Sarah Webster, vice president for investor relations, government relations and corporate communication for Pattern Energy Group Inc., a U.S.-based firm focused on wind, solar, transmission, storage and advanced energy projects. "So I think it's something that has to be on the table if we're intellectually being honest about the challenges we're facing and the tools we have in the toolkit to address them.
"'Refresh' energy reform
Donnelly also reiterated that current Energy Chairwoman Murkowski wants to update the bipartisan energy package that passed the Senate four years ago only to die in conference talks at the end of the session.
"The boss wants to refresh it," Donnelly said of the original package, parts of which have been enacted through other means, including the broad public lands package that President Trump signed earlier this month, as well as water infrastructure and omnibus spending bills.
"So we're going through it right now to see what remains," she said, noting a revamped package will have to move through the committee via regular order, given new members who weren't around during the drafting of earlier versions. Donnelly said it was possible the bill could be broken into smaller bills that move separately.
Murkowski last month said she hoped to capitalize on the bipartisan, bicameral cooperation that sent the lands package to Trump's desk to revive energy reform efforts (Greenwire, Feb. 13).
Donnelly said today Murkowski plans to meet soon with her House counterparts to discuss the efforts.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/03/20/stories/1060127789
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Trump Ridicules 'Very, Very Expensive' Renewable Energy
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Christa Marshall
President Trump mocked renewable power yesterday, suggesting that wind energy could cause electricity blackouts and lower property values.
Speaking at a tank factory in Ohio, Trump said former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton "wanted to put windmills all over the place."
"Let's put up some windmills — when the wind doesn't blow, just turn off the television, darling, please. No wind out today. ... Please turn off the television quickly!" according to a video posted on C-SPAN. "If you are in sight of a windmill ... watch the value of your house go down by 65 percent."
Trump added that it's "wonderful to have windmills, and solar is wonderful, too, but it's not strong enough, and it's very, very expensive."
The comments came on the heels of Trump's fiscal 2020 budget request, which called for reducing Department of Energy wind research funding by more than 74 percent below current levels. Solar research would decline by more than 70 percent under the plan.
Trump has attacked wind power before. In Utica, N.Y., last summer, he said wind was a "killing field" for birds (E&E News PM, Aug. 20, 2018).
Renewable energy supporters have repeatedly said Trump's wind attacks are inaccurate.
Earlier this month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who's vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said it's "just simply moronic" for Trump to suggest that wind power means turning off toasters and TVs.
The American Wind Energy Association yesterday also pointed to a 2013 study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory concluding that wind turbines near residences don't reduce property values.
The comments followed a report from the Energy Information Administration this week that found renewable sources provided a record 742 million megawatt-hours of electricity last year, reaching almost 17 percent of U.S. generation.
"Declining costs" of wind and solar, along with federal tax credits, helped drive renewable growth in the past decade, EIA said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/03/21/stories/1060127813
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Houston Chemical Blaze Probe Weighed by Federal Investigator
Mar 20, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard and Ben Foldy
Federal and local investigators are weighing a probe of the Houston chemical blaze as hazardous compounds waft near the burned-out site.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board “is following up on the incident and should be making a decision to send an investigator shortly,” spokeswoman Hillary Cohen said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. Hours earlier, firefighters extinguished the last of the fires at Intercontinental Terminals Co.’s petrochemical complex that menaced the fourth-largest U.S. city for almost four days.
Prosecutors in Harris County, which encompasses Houston, also said they were mulling an investigation and would decide once environmental agencies have made their assessments.
At a nearby facility in the refining and chemical row east of downtown Houston, Royal Dutch Shell Plc alerted workers that it detected benzene—a cancer-causing oil byproduct. The company issued a so-called shelter-in-place order out of an “abundance of caution” and operations continued uninterrupted. The notice was later lifted. Shell noted the benzene emerged from sources outside the plant, which is less than 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the ITC property.
Root-Cause AnalysisThe CSB, a Washington-based panel formally known as the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, launched extensive probes into the BP Plc refinery disaster in nearby Texas City that killed 15 people in 2005, as well as the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe that killed 11 in 2010. No one died or was injured in ITC’s incident.
A federal investigation “will be akin to what FAA does when a plane crashes,” said Jonathan Baughman, a partner who chairs the oil and gas practice at McGinnis Lochridge in Houston. “They’ll be doing root-cause analysis as well as looking to see if there were any deficiencies with the procedures in place.”
Reuters reported earlier Wednesday that both the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Harris County district attorney’s office were looking into the fire.
ITC officials warned that smoke and steam may still be visible from the area, and firefighting crews will continue to spray foam and water on the tanks to prevent re-ignition.
Schools had already been ordered closed before the fire was extinguished, after shifting weather patterns sparked concern that the plume of smoke might sink to ground level, making breathing hazardous.
Current readings show no hazardous concentrations of particulates or volatile organic compounds, known as VOCs, according to Adam Adams, an official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The agency is in the process of taking water samples, with results expected Friday, he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/houston-chemical-blaze-probe-weighed-by-federal-investigator
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How 5G High-Speed America Jolts Grid Security
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
Picture a very crowded, overheated boxing ring.
In one corner, Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Cisco and other technology titans are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to clear a path for a deluge of new super-fast Wi-Fi apps and social media content over America's next-generation 5G internet.
In the other corner is the entire energy sector, which is represented by its powerful Washington lobbying shops including the Edison Electric Institute, American Public Power Association, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, American Petroleum Institute, American Water Works Association and Utilities Technology Council.
At the center of the ring is a noisy fight for control of wireless spectrum that the electricity industry says is absolutely critical for communications if a natural disaster knocks out a substation or hackers breach the grid.
The 2-year-old dispute has slowed an FCC plan to open the gates to Wi-Fi competition across the energy industry band. And it's complicated the Trump administration's full-steam-ahead policy, which frames 5G technology as the way to lock down economic supremacy over China.
For utilities, signal interference resulting from a free-for-all among companies offering more ways to stream video could degrade the band enough to shut down communications. Call it a choice between "Black Panther" and blackouts, from their perspective.
FCC initiated the confrontation by seeking comment on a proposal to open up prime space on the high-frequency radio spectrum in the 6-gigahertz (GHz) range for future unlicensed Wi-Fi competition.
"When it comes to 5G, it's imperative that we remain at the front of the pack," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. At a White House 5G conference in September, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow saluted the commission's "5G Fast" plan. "Let it rip," Kudlow said.
But if the energy industry's warnings are right, the FCC's initiative runs counter to another mission of national importance — defending critical infrastructure against potential natural disasters and cyberattacks, and restoring electricity and water to people if the worst should happen.
Command and control
The president's National Infrastructure Advisory Council — local officials and senior executives who run utilities and other critical U.S. infrastructure — has urged regulators to create "separate, secure communications networks" and reserve spectrum for backup communications during emergencies.
"There is no such thing as being cyber secure," said Rob Schwartz, president of telecom company pdvWireless. "It's levels of how secure you can make it. And one of the essential components that often gets lost is that a private communications network is critical to doing so — to having the command and control of that network."
The window for comments to FCC closed last month, and now the decision on how to proceed is up to the commission.
"The FCC has been hearing from Google and Microsoft and Qualcomm and others that they're being squeezed: They need more spectrum for their businesses," explained Joy Ditto, chief executive of the Utilities Technology Council. "They say 6 GHz would be ideal. We all like to download stuff. This is very much an FCC mindset."
With an implicit dig at the FCC commissioners, Ditto told a congressional panel last year that regulators "lack the understanding" of how utilities use wireless communications and the electric reliability policies they're governed by.
"We think it's going to be very hard to dissuade the FCC from taking the action," she told E&E News.
The 6-GHz spectrum segment, a prime part of the FCC's initiative, is expected to get a lot more crowded. Verizon, AT&T and other telecom companies have begun installing the antennas and backbone networks for 5G Wi-Fi offerings, and next year the rollout arrives in full.
5G technology allows data to move more than 100 times faster than the current 4G internet platform. That will be fast enough, for example, for gamers to shoot their way through "Fortnite Battle Royale" on their phones in real time with no upload delays while a computer drives the car, as the Digital Trends website predicted. It's not just entertainment. Cisco predicts the fastest growth in 5G wireless use will happen in hospitals and health care facilities. And untold other wonders of 21st-century communications are on the way.
"The commission's action on 6 GHz comes at a critical time — an inflection point," the tech companies told FCC.
Mushrooming demand for unlicensed spectrum — the kind most consumers use for their wireless broadband connections — cannot be met with current allocations. "The commission has correctly concluded ... that unlicensed technologies are indispensable for American consumers and businesses," Apple and its allies said in a joint filing.
5G traffic jam
But there are other inflection points.
The installation of a 5G transmission backbone is entangled in a high-level dispute between the U.S. government and China's Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., which is a global leader in 5G equipment. Congress last year banned government agencies and contractors from using Huawei components in sensitive operations. Last month, Vice President Mike Pence urged U.S. allies to reject Huawei products as security threats.
Jeanette Manfra, assistant director for cybersecurity in the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said on the sidelines of the RSA security conference earlier this month that the agency is looking into risks tied to 5G equipment.
The review would presumably directly confront the Huawei controversy. "One of the key priorities is the strategic risk assessment of 5G," Rob Joyce, senior cybersecurity adviser at the National Security Agency, said at the RSA conference. "My main concern right now is that we haven't scoped [out] the conversation, at least in Washington, D.C."
Huawei executives have denied their equipment poses cyberthreats and have sought to include the issue in the trade negotiations between China and the United States.
Another inflection point is energy technology. The operation of the nation's utilities is becoming more complicated as they use more renewable energy generation and consumers put solar panels on roofs.
Advances in computing power and software also create new applications for electricity consumers. That obliges utilities to respond.
Those applications become appendages to the utilities' networks. They expand the volumes of data flowing between utilities and their customers and expand the risks of a cyberattack. Cyber risk increases the need for utilities to control their communications channels. "The reason why we have a cybersecurity risk in the first place is because we're using communications technology on the grid," Ditto said.
'Smart' everything
More than 70 million U.S. households — nearly half the total — have smart electric meters that can "talk" to utilities, and behind them are coming smart thermostats and appliances, security systems, and steadily multiplying charging stations for electric vehicles in homes and "smart" office buildings.
The applications spell an upheaval for the comparatively static operation of power grids. Where human operators typically had up to five minutes to bring the grid back after disruptions, experts say computers responding to artificial intelligence algorithms today will make decisions in milliseconds.
Technology advances have created a catalog of new digital grid control devices, including "reclosers" that isolate areas of a community that have lost power in a storm, for example, rerouting electricity around the trouble spots, notes consultant Douglas McGinnis of Red Rose Telecom. McGinnis' paper, commissioned by the Utilities Technology Council, was submitted to FCC.
Transmission companies are installing relays in substations that connect to both ends of a transmission line, McGinnis noted. If a storm takes down a high-voltage power line, the relays can open circuit breakers on both ends, cutting off power. But the relays must act in unison, in fractions of a second, McGinnis said. If one of the relays doesn't open in time, "in addition to transformers catching fire or worse, the utility's overall transmission system can become unstable and cause possible blackout scenarios."
Ditto put more plainly the concern about interference with utility communications.
"Our members have said they cannot tolerate interference in the gigahertz channel," Ditto said. "They can't even tolerate the threat of it. The thought it could happen is not tolerable."
FCC says new unlicensed Wi-Fi service can coexist with the utilities without the interference issue. "The FCC is looking for a way to allow these services to coexist," said Doug Brake, director of broadband and spectrum policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.
A new service seeking to set up its wireless network would have to confirm that a utility's communications channel would not be threatened, and then it could determine which channels were safe to use, he said.
"From a risk analysis sense, how likely is the interference to happen? That might be quite low. It's a common tactic before the FCC, to bring a worst-case scenario," Brake said. "But, even if the risk is low, the potential for interference would be a very bad outcome."
He believes there are solutions that will permit utilities and technology companies to share the 6-GHz space.
Big picture
Ditto has asked members of Congress to lean on FCC to agree to a technical review with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to get a common understanding of threats and solutions to the competition for wireless channels.
"I think maybe there's informal discussions that occur between the two agencies," she told a congressional committee last year. "But to my knowledge, there is no formal venue for those discussions at least in recent memory."
FERC confirms the two staffs are in contact.
FCC has other opportunities to create channels for 5G and for critical utility communications.
Schwartz's company, pdvWireless, won a commission endorsement last week of its plan to consolidate pieces of the 900-megahertz narrow-band spectrum it owns into larger broadband segments that it would sell to energy companies seeking space for high-speed operations communications.
Realigning the band would create opportunities to "fully support critical communications systems," FCC said. FCC commissioners approved a notice of proposed rulemaking to adopt the plan.
In the bigger picture, the electricity sector's concerns about its communications networks go beyond security, experts say.
The possibility of a wholesale shift of motoring in America from gasoline-driven to electric is the power industry's bright dream. The Electric Power Research Institute estimates that steady growth in electric vehicle sales and home heating electrification could push overall U.S. electricity demand up 24 percent to 52 percent cumulatively by 2050. Without those drivers, utility output would shrink, EPRI said.
As much as 90 percent of EV charging will take place at home, the Brattle Group projects, creating an enormous jump in data flowing between customers and utility control centers. But this future won't be handed to utilities. They will need to expand their communications networks to realize it, said a Navigant Consulting Inc. study.
"As storm severity continues to grow and other disasters such as drought and wildfires become more common, regulatory bodies, grid operators, and power balancing authorities nationwide will be under increasing pressure to improve grid resilience," according to Navigant. "This cannot be achieved without a robust communications infrastructure — infrastructure that, to be most effective, should be standardized and interoperable across utility and state boundaries for ease of support and mutual aid in times of crisis."
Customers will demand new programs to help them reduce energy use and reduce dependence on fossil fuels for electricity. "If utilities do not meet these expectations, providers such as Google or Amazon very well might," Navigant said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/03/21/stories/1060127807
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Energy Panel’s Tonko Sets Guideposts for Climate Legislation
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The head of a House energy subcommittee unveiled a set of climate policy principles March 21, sketching out in broad terms what he believes any climate legislation should incorporate.
Rep. Paul Tonko’s (D-N.Y.) principles include an emphasis on setting a science-based greenhouse gas target toward achieving carbon-neutral emissions by 2050. Tonko chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee, which will be the starting point for considering most climate legislation on the House side.
The set of nine principles, which Tonko released during the Climate Leadership Conference in Baltimore, reflect more than a year of work by the New York lawmaker.
“The plan here is to make certain that we have a common understanding of the guidelines” that will serve as a tool to assess climate policy solutions, Tonko told Bloomberg Environment.
Tonko said the principles should serve as a guidepost for the work of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reconvened this year.
But that committee, headed by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), doesn’t have legislative authority. As a result, Tonko said he expects legislative solutions to come out of the subcommittee he chairs.
“In a sense, they’re doing the marketing strategy, and we’ll be doing the product development,” he said of Energy and Commerce’s relationship to the select climate panel.
Green New Deal
But Tonko’s principles will have to find a space in a climate discussion on Capitol Hill that has been crowded in recent months by the Green New Deal—the resolution (H.Res. 109) championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that calls for a rapid transition to clean energy—as well as a number of other progressive priorities around health care, education, and social justice.
Tonko said his principles are complementary to the Green New Deal, which he said has brought a new momentum and spirit, raising the consciousness of climate change as a political issue.
And the framework is also something he hopes his Republican colleagues can get behind. Many GOP lawmakers have condemned the Green New Deal as a gigantic overreach.
“There’s no prescriptive element to these principles. They’re values that many of us hold in common,” Tonko said of his work.
For example, the principles call for a focus on clean energy investment, work on a just transition for communities that have historically relied on fossil fuel industries, and attention to bolstering communities’ resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Tonko said he has been encouraged by his subcommittee’s hearings on climate change thus far, and is optimistic that this Congress can work on bipartisan, bicameral near-term climate solutions.
Those include efforts to boost energy efficiency, weatherization, modernization of the electric grid, and increases in low-carbon research and development, he said.
The Climate Leadership Conference’s headline sponsor is Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/energy-panels-tonko-sets-guideposts-for-climate-legislation
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Large Manufacturers Want Focus, Funds to Cut Heat-Related Carbon
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Some of the biggest U.S. manufacturers want to ramp up attention, investment, and support for cutting carbon from heating and cooling, which they say is critical to meeting their climate and clean energy targets.
Nearly a dozen major manufacturing companies—including the Chemours Co., Cargill, Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Co.—are outlining a set of principles to help prompt a market for renewable thermal solutions. They aim to reduce greenhouse gases from heating and cooling, a major source of emissions from the industrial and building sectors.
The companies, along with the city of Philadelphia and the University of Maryland, are part of the Renewable Thermal Collaborative and introduced the Buyers’ Principles March 20 at the Climate Leadership Conference in Baltimore.
Energy used for heating and cooling contributes around 39 percent of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, according to the collaborative.
But there isn’t an immediate, scalable renewable thermal energy solution for the problem, as there is with renewable electricity options such as wind and solar, Peter Dahm, sustainability director of operations and natural resources for Cargill, told Bloomberg Environment.
“Renewable thermal energy solutions are very site-specific and location-dependent,” he said.
For example, he said Cargill, a large agricultural producer based in Minnesota, burns different types of biomass in its facilities based on what is available, such as burning cocoa shells for heat energy at a cocoa plant. But the company can’t use that same heat source at every one of its manufacturing plants, he said.
Renewable thermal energy can include any number of technologies that produce carbon-neutral heating and cooling, including biomass and biogas, renewable natural gas, waste-to-energy, and solar thermal energy.
Climate GoalsClimate Goals
Companies in the manufacturing space, as well as cities that manage builidings and facilities, have to be thinking about this as they work to meet their carbon targets, David Gardiner, president of the climate and clean energy consulting firm David Gardiner and Associates, said at the conference.
The firm helps convene the Renewable Thermal Collaborative, along with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and the World Wildlife Fund.
The Climate Leadership Conference’s headline sponsor is Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
Mars Inc., another member of the Renewable Thermal Collaborative, set a science-based greenhouse gas target to have 100 percent fossil-free energy consumption by 2040.
When the company set that target in 2008, about half of its energy-related carbon emissions came from electricity and half from thermal energy, Kevin Rabinovitch, Mars’ global vice president of sustainability, said at the climate conference.
Mars has significantly cut its emissions by purchasing wind, solar, and other carbon-neutral sources of electricity, but it hasn’t made much progress on thermal, and that could pose a challenge as it works to meet its climate goals, he added.
“We can stay on the path for a few more years, but pretty soon if we don’t have a solution for thermal, we fall off our target pathway,” Rabinovitch said.
Call for Innovation
A wide-reaching renewable thermal technology isn’t available yet, and that’s part of what the companies and entities in the collaborative are hoping to address.
“It’s a tougher nut to crack, as well. It’s a little more difficult to come up with a suite of solutions,” Dahm said. About 80 percent of the Cargill’s energy use is thermal, which accounts for 60 percent of the company’s emissions, he said.
Part of the Buyers’ Principles is to send a market signal and call for innovation to find that renewable thermal technology that is scalable.
“The more entities that step forward to say this is important, the more urgency the marketplace will show in coming up with solutions,” Dahm said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/large-manufacturers-want-focus-funds-to-cut-heat-related-carbon
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After Fast Start, a Slowdown for the Green New Deal
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews and Adam Aton
Sen. Chris Van Hollen likes the Green New Deal and plans to soon support its ambitious vision of fighting climate change.
But first, the Maryland Democrat has to get a couple of things in order — such as finishing up a related measure that would impose a price on carbon emissions.
"I intend to co-sponsor the bill in the coming weeks when I also introduce 'cap and dividend' legislation," wrote Van Hollen in a Twitter post earlier this month.
His conditional support is emblematic of where things stand in the ongoing effort by environmental activists to recruit more congressional co-sponsors for a symbolic resolution in support of the Green New Deal.
With the low-hanging fruit of early admirers now plucked, all that remains are the tougher branches.
And with that comes some politicking and conditions — such as Van Hollen's ancillary push for a carbon price — that could foreshadow a legislative battle over the Green New Deal and its transformational plan to fight climate change with a government-led jobs program.
"I felt it was important to couple my support for the Green New Deal — which puts forward a plan for investment in green jobs and renewable energy — with my legislation to significantly reduce carbon pollution by putting a price on emissions. Both pieces are necessary to tackle this crisis," Van Hollen said in a statement to E&E News.
On one level, it isn't a surprise that Green New Deal supporters have struggled to add co-sponsors over the last couple of weeks. Most bills or resolutions experience a dip in enthusiasm a few weeks after their introduction, and the same pattern would fit the Green New Deal.
The resolution was introduced Feb. 7 with the backing of about 80 co-sponsors in the House and Senate; since then, about two dozen backers have come on board. The most recent, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), signed up March 8, according to congressional records.
Because of the slowdown, the current moment offers an inflection point for the Green New Deal resolution — if not the movement overall.
Legislatively, momentum has stalled. The number of new co-sponsors has slowed to a trickle, and its prospects of passage — never good or realistic to begin with — have hit separate roadblocks in the House and Senate.
On the House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spoken positively about the enthusiasm of Green New Deal supporters, but the California Democrat hasn't committed to holding a vote on the measure.
"I can't say we're going to take that and pass it because we have to go through our checks and balances of it with our committee chairs and the rest," Pelosi said in late February.
The situation is almost the exact opposite in the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to hold a vote soon on the Green New Deal resolution, but his aim is to put political pressure on moderate Democrats rather than build support for the idea.
In response, Senate Democrats have discussed the idea of voting "present" — rather than yes or no (Climatewire, Feb. 26).
The upcoming vote, and the Democratic countermeasure, could explain why other Senate Democrats have been reluctant to join as co-sponsors, as it might look strange for a lawmaker to sign up as a supporter and then vote present a few days later.
McConnell's move has pushed some Democrats who haven't co-sponsored the Green New Deal into defending it.
Two of the Senate's loudest climate hawks, Sens. Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, are conspicuously absent from the Green New Deal resolution. They have praised it but also emphasized their own climate proposals (E&E Daily, Feb. 6).
With the Senate vote looming, however, those two have leaned into the fight.
Whitehouse has used his regular climate-themed floor speeches to highlight polling that shows Republican voters support the Green New Deal's principles. And Schatz has folded the proposal into his attacks on the GOP.
"If you are undecided on the Green New Deal one data point is that Jack Abramoff has started a super PAC against it," Schatz tweeted of the notorious Republican lobbyist who pleaded guilty in a 2006 case that alleged widespread corruption.
There have been other issues, too — notably a high-profile dust-up last month between Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Green New Deal supporters. The activists were trying to convince Feinstein to support the resolution, and her response — captured on video — was criticized as condescending by its supporters.
"You know better than I do, so I think one day you should run for the Senate, and then you do it your way," Feinstein told one protester (Climatewire, Feb. 25).
'Nine massive events'
The lack of movement in Congress, however, belies a different kind of momentum for the Green New Deal. The proposal is a frequent talking point on the 2020 campaign trail — at least a half-dozen presidential aspirants are co-sponsors.
One of the campaign's newest entrants, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas), spoke positively of the concept at a campaign stop last week.
"I'll tell you what. I haven't seen anything better that addresses this singular crisis that we face, a crisis that could, at its worst, lead to extinction," he said.
Climate ranks as the top issue for Iowa Democrats, statistically tied with health care as the topic they most want candidates to talk about, according to a CNN/Des Moines Register pollconducted in early March.
A whopping 91 percent of Iowa Democrats told the pollsters they preferred a candidate who backs the Green New Deal.
In recent weeks, supporters of the Green New Deal have worked a dual track to build support for the concept. They've pushed the Democratic presidential field to embrace the Green New Deal while encouraging other members of Congress to get on board.
One new campaign tries to do both. Activists with the Sunrise Movement, the group that launched the Green New Deal discussion, plan to fan across the country for an event that's being billed as the Road to a Green New Deal Tour.
"Starting in mid-April, thousands will gather for nine massive events with national Sunrise leaders and some of the rising stars in progressive politics," Varshini Prakash, the group's executive director, wrote in a recent email call to arms. "Planning is already in full swing for stops in Boston, Detroit, Des Moines, Paradise, CA, Los Angeles, San Antonio, New Orleans, Richmond, KY, and Washington, DC."
The effort will entail more than 100 town halls, as well, according to organizers.
"If we pull this off, we'll build the public support needed to ensure that the Green New Deal is at the top of the agenda as we head the 2020 election," Prakash added.
Already there are signs that some folks are listening.
Ruppersberger, the Maryland congressman, is the most recent signatory to the Green New Deal resolution.
Not known as a liberal bomb-thrower, the nine-term lawmaker represents a Maryland district that's home to Fort Meade and the National Security Agency.
He's served on some of Congress' most established panels — including his current stint on the Appropriations Committee — and Ruppersberger told E&E News he was initially skeptical of the whole thing.
"At first blush, I was thinking I wasn't going to get involved with that," said Ruppersberger in a phone interview. Part of his concern with the Green New Deal was that it would be a "Bernie [Sanders] issue," he said — in other words, a long wish list without a price tag.
And indeed Ruppersberger said he still nurses some of those concerns. "I reserve the right to evaluate every issue as it comes," he said.
But Ruppersberger said two factors swayed him.
The first was a strong argument in favor of the Green New Deal by Rep. John Sarbanes, a fellow Maryland Democrat.
The other was taking the time to read the resolution, which calls for massive transformation of U.S. industries, including a 10-year goal of generating "100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources."
"There's nothing in there we don't want for our country," Ruppersberger said. At the very least, he added, the Green New Deal "allows us to start debating these issues."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/03/21/stories/1060127815
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Solving Climate Change the American Way
Mar 21, 2019 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.)
Global warming is an existential crisis. The overwhelming consensus in the scientific community is that global warming will threaten the prosperity and security of not only every American, but people around the world.
To address this threat with the seriousness and analytical clarity that it deserves we have to focus on one core goal: reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This comes with acknowledging four core realties: First, we should not make action on climate harder to solve by linking it to other issues of inequality or injustice. This will only delay real action on climate and time is our enemy. When John F. Kennedy said we should send someone to the moon, he didn’t tie it to unrelated social or economic policies. He marshalled significant resources and talent and had a laser-like focus on the goal. Second, we need to propose solutions that don’t radically disrupt the entire economy, or shift all of the burdens to the poor or working class. Focusing on ideas that many in the country oppose will only delay real action on climate. Third, we have to acknowledge that solving the climate crisis involves transitioning off fossil fuels over time, not immediately eliminating fossil fuels. While many don’t like to admit it, fossil fuels produce 80 percent of the world’s energy. Currently, there are not enough alternative energy sources to transition off fossil fuels in the short term.ADVERTISEMENT
Making this transition harder is the tremendous population and economic growth occurring across Asia and Africa, which will only create more demand for energy. The question, therefore, must be, how do we decarbonize fossil fuels, while simultaneously increasing renewables? Finally, and most importantly, American innovation must be central to the strategy of solving global warming.
Based on these realties, the United States should pursue the following national strategy. First, pass a carbon tax-dividend law, similar to the bipartisan bill I lead in the Congress. The American people will accept this approach and this alone will reduce emissions 90 percent by 2050. A coalition of Democrats and coastal Republicans can pass this law. Second, significantly increase investment in basic energy research around storage, transmission, carbon capture and advanced nuclear. We fundamentally need new technologies to solve this problem and the United States must – and can - lead in “cracking the code” on these technologies.
We see the benefits of innovation with the first “Allam Cycle” natural gas facility that opened in Houston last year, creating the first zero emissions natural gas plant. Finally, we need to create a market for negative emission technologies, including Direct Air Capture Technology (DAC). These are machines and methods that extract carbon from the atmosphere and pump it back into the earth. They exist today, but they are too expensive and not at scale. Estimates indicate that they currently cost rough $600 a metric ton and the social cost of carbon is now estimated to be roughly $48 a metric ton. This problem can be solved by American innovation. Reforestation efforts and planting trees simply won’t be enough for a problem on this scale. If we create a market for these technologies – like we did for wind and solar – the private innovation economy will drive down the cost.
According to Professor Stephen Pacala, the Chair of the National Academy of Sciences report on Negative Emissions Technology, “Although there has been a revolution in expensive zero-emissions energy technology, we still don’t have alternatives for 15-20% of the nation’s emissions – for example a large fraction of the agricultural emissions that are required to produce the nation’s food. These recalcitrant emissions will have to be offset by removing CO2 directly from the atmosphere. Existing methods of CO2 removal are limited, but would be up to the job if we could bring down the cost of direct air capture machines, something that market competition is ideally suited to do.”
To create the market, we can eliminate the current subsidies for fossil fuels and instead use that approximate $5 billion per year to create an economically viable market for negative emission technology, including DAC, through an auction of captured carbon. This will unleash innovation and lead to the development of less costly carbon capture technologies, allowing for sequestration to be more widely used. By pairing the NET investment with a carbon tax, implementing the carbon capture technology will become more affordable than paying the carbon tax.
Once we get to $100-200 a metric ton, they can be deployed everywhere to literally pull carbon out of the atmosphere. This isn’t “clean coal” this is something drastically more effective. These technologies will become the most valuable technologies in the world and the U.S. should invest in them, own them, and use them to both get our country and the entire world to net zero emissions.
Americans are tired of leaders fighting with each other rather than working together on solutions. If we work together, we can solve the problem of global warming the same way we put a man on the moon and created the internet: by harnessing the power of innovation and intellectual capital. That’s a goal all Americans should embrace.
John Delaney is a Democratic candidate for president and a former member of Congress and entrepreneur.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/434854-solving-climate-change-the-american-way
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