Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 3/22/2019
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(ACC Mentioned) Market Outlook: Stormy Weather Ahead for Chemicals
Mar 22, 2019 | ICIS
Four serious challenges are on the horizon for the global petrochemical industry as it meets again in San Antonio. -
(ACC Mentioned) US February Chem Production Declines 0.4%
Mar 21, 2019 | ICIS
US chemical production fell by 0.4% in February from January, with lower output across all regions, particularly in the Gulf Coast and Ohio Valley, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said on Thursday. -
Trump Taps Tech Official for Top Science Role
Mar 22, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Christa Marshall
President Trump last night announced he will nominate Michael Kratsios to become the country's chief technology officer — a position that has been vacant for more than two years and could sway national energy policy. -
Lawmakers Renew Calls for EPA Risk Evaluation Transparency
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Courtney Columbus and Corbin Hiar
Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) are once again calling for EPA to release the health and safety studies it used in the risk evaluation of pigment violet 29. -
Democrats Attack EPA's New CBI Claim to Force Release of TSCA Studies
Mar 22, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
House Democrats are renewing their push to force EPA to release studies that form the basis of its draft assessment of a pigment chemical, its first such assessment of an existing chemical under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) -
New TSCA Labelling Requirements for Composite Wood Products to go into Effect March 22, 2019
Mar 21, 2019 | National Law Review
By Leila Nourani and Zoe E. Tremayne
Employees can sue for unsafe work environment. At Jackson Lewis, we pride ourselves in providing advice to employers on how to prevent or minimize workplace related claims. Employers are obligated to warn consumers and employees of any risks involved with exposure to products... -
LA County Bans Monsanto Weed Killer Citing Health Concerns
Mar 21, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Chris Mills Rodrigo
Los Angeles County this week issued a moratorium on the use of Monsanto's Roundup weed killer, citing the need for more research into its active ingredient, an NBC News affiliate reported. -
LNG Exports Highlight Climate Clash at Energy Regulator
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Cunningham
Venture Global LNG Inc.’s $5 billion Calcasieu Pass Liquefied Natural Gas terminal in Louisiana is the latest flash point in federal regulators’ ongoing battle over climate change. -
Trump Has a Plan to Preserve Benefits for Oil Drillers in Future
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
A top Interior Department official told oil industry leaders the Trump administration is seeking to sign contracts leasing new coastal waters for oil drilling under favorable terms that will be difficult for future presidents to revoke or rewrite. -
Senators Ready Wish Lists for Murkowski, Manchin Energy Bill
Mar 22, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The Senate wants to be prepared if House Democrats move clean energy and climate change bills. -
Links Between Fracking, Earthquakes Remain Elusive, Canadian Report Finds
Mar 21, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
Links between hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and earthquakes, and predicting and preventing the tremors, remain riddles requiring far more scientific study, according to a report commissioned by the British Columbia (BC) government. -
EPA Must Develop Plans for Chemical Facilities, Groups Say
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
A coalition of environmental groups seeks to compel the EPA to issue regulations mandating that chemical facilities develop plans to prevent, mitigate and respond to spills of hazardous substances. -
After Houston Fire, Danger Grows as Benzene Clouds Shut Suburb
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joe Carroll and Ben Foldy
Now that the four-day fire is out at a Houston-area chemical storage complex, the real danger has emerged. -
Explosion at Chemical Plant in Eastern China Kills at Least 47
Mar 21, 2019 | Wall Street Journal
By Chun Han Wong
An explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China killed at least 47 people and injured hundreds of others, state media and local authorities said. -
Has Another Disaster Been Prevented?
Mar 22, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Kelsey Brugger and Erica Martinson
This Sunday will mark 30 years since the fateful night when the Exxon Valdez crashed into Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound, forever changing international oil shipping standards. -
Colorado Ozone Fight Tests EPA Expansion of Foreign Emissions Waivers
Mar 21, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Local business groups in Colorado are urging the state to ask EPA for a less-severe “nonattainment” designation for the agency’s ozone ambient air limit by citing a Clean Air Act (CAA) waiver that would blame foreign emissions for its inability to meet the standard... -
Dem Divisions Deepen over Approach to Climate Change
Mar 22, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Centrist Democrats are pushing back on the fast-paced approach to climate change legislation preferred by “Green New Deal” supporters, arguing instead for a more gradual manner that they think will have a stronger chance of passing and reaching across the aisle. -
EPA Adviser Draws Ire for Seeking Change to Air Quality Reviews
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Some scientists are alarmed the chairman of the EPA’s clean air science advisory committee wants to adopt an approach they say goes against widely accepted and vetted scientific practices. -
EPA Panel May Upend Scientific Basis for Regs — Researchers
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
Recent developments on a key EPA advisory committee threaten to upend the agency's long-standing mechanisms for safeguarding the public from common air pollutants, two critics wrote in a newly published paper. -
Carbon Tax Supporters Refining Details Amid Hazy Political Outlook
Mar 22, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan, Doug Obey and Dawn Reeves
Groups that back a carbon tax are continuing to refine elements of their preferred policy, even though the effort faces a hazy political outlook due to skepticism from progressives concerned the policy would be an insufficient response to climate change... -
IBM, Bank of America Trying to Avoid Climate Fight With Peers
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Climate-oriented firms should frame carbon-cutting and clean energy policies as better business opportunities for all, rather than attacking corporate opponents of climate regulation, several executives said March 21. -
Climate Deal Seen as Antidote to Chinese Dumping
Mar 22, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
The U.S. refrigerants industry thinks a global deal that is usually billed as a response to climate change could stop Chinese companies from illegally dumping chemicals on the U.S. market.
Industry and Association News
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Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Market Outlook: Stormy Weather Ahead for Chemicals
Mar 22, 2019 | ICIS
Four serious challenges are on the horizon for the global petrochemical industry as it meets again in San Antonio.
The first is the growing risk of recession, with key markets such as autos, electronics and housing all showing signs of major weakness. Central banks are already talking up the potential for further stimulus, less than a year after they had tried to claim victory for their post-Crisis policies.
Second is oil market volatility, where prices raced up in the first half of last year, only to then collapse from $85/bbl to $50/bbl by Christmas, before rallying again this year. The issue is that major structural change is now underway, with US and Russian production increasing at Saudi Arabia’s expense.
Third, there is the unsettling impact of geo-politics and trade wars. The US-China trade war has set alarm bells ringing around the world, whilst the Brexit arguments between the UK and European Union are another sign that the age of globalisation is behind us, with potentially major implications for today’s supply chains.
And then there is the industry’s own, very specific challenge, shown in the first chart. Based on innovative trade data analysis by Trade Data Monitor, it highlights the dramatic impact of the new US shale gas-based cracker investments on global trade in petrochemicals. The idea is to capture the full effect of the new ethylene production across the key derivatives – polyethylene, PVC, styrene, EDC, vinyl acetate, ethyl benzene, ethylene glycol – based on their ethylene content. Even with next year’s planned new US ethylene terminal, the derivatives will still be the cheapest and easiest way to export the new ethylene molecules.
The cracker start-ups were inevitably delayed by the hurricanes in 2017. But if one compares 2018 with 2016 (to avoid the distortions these caused), there was still a net increase of 1.7 million tonnes in US ethylene-equivalent trade flows. This was more than 40% of the total production increase over the period, as reported by the American Chemistry Council. And 2019 will see further major increases in volume with 4.25 million tonnes of new ethylene capacity due to start-up, alongside full-year output from last year’s start-ups.
The problem is two-fold. As discussed here in 2014 (ICB, US boom is a dangerous game, 24-30 March), it was never likely that central bank stimulus policies could actually return demand growth to the levels seen in the Boomer-led SuperCycle from 1983-2000:
“Shale gas thus provides a high-profile example of how today’s unprecedented demographic changes are creating major changes in business models. Low-cost supply is no longer a guarantee of future profitability.”
This was not a popular message at the time, when oil was still riding high at over $100/bbl and the economic impact of globally ageing populations and collapsing fertility rates were still not widely understood. But it has borne the test of time, and sums up the challenge now facing the industry.
Since then, of course, US shale developments have gone from strength to strength. And the recent news of major new investments being planned by ExxonMobil and Chevron Phillips highlights the likely long-term impact. The key factor from a petrochemical viewpoint, of course, is that the ethane produced from any “wet gas” discoveries can often effectively become a distressed product. It forms an explosive mixture when mixed with air at 3%-12.5% by volume, and so has to be extracted before the natural gas can be sold.
ETHYLENE FLOWS
The second chart shows the impact of this new ethylene production on global markets. Originally, most of the new production was expected to go to China, where it was assumed that demand would always be expanding ahead of domestic supply and so would require major US imports. That hope, unfortunately, proved over-optimistic given China’s growing focus on self-sufficiency and its policy of preferentially developing trade with Belt & Road Initiative countries in the Middle East.
President Trump’s decision to launch his trade war last year therefore couldn’t have been worse timed. But even if the tariffs are withdrawn, it seems likely that Middle Eastern suppliers will continue to dominate China’s import market. The opportunities in Latin America are also limited by the overall size of the market. Thus, it is no real surprise that Europe has become the target for the largest volume increase, with nearly half a million tonnes of additional ethylene equivalent product arriving in 2018.
If this flow continues to expand in 2019, as seems likely, it will have a number of critical impacts on the local market:
■ It is already reducing European output of co-products, as Europe is a naphtha-based economy. Q3’s propylene production was the lowest since 2001 according to APPE data, as ethylene equivalent imports replaced the need for domestic ethylene output
■ There is therefore a clear risk that further imports will impact other value chains beyond simply ethylene, as well as disrupting existing infrastructure. Any enforced cracker closure would inevitably impact co-product output and pipeline operations
■ A related issue is that no new cracker has been built in Europe for over 20 years, and therefore those regarded locally as a first quartile operation may well be seen by non-European companies as second or perhaps even third quartile within their portfolio
And, of course, we cannot ignore the separate impact of the sustainability debate and the threat it poses to single-use plastics. Over half of polyethylene is used in this application, and Europe is clearly in the eye of the storm in terms of its potential replacement by either recycled polyethylene or other materials.
As with the previous debate over CFCs and the ozone layer, the underlying issue is focused on the industry’s licence to operate. And as we know from past experience, change can often come much faster than initially expected.
The conclusion is therefore fairly clear, namely that time has run out for the idea that the industry can hope for an eventual return to steady growth and ‘business as usual’. Instead we have to deal with a world of increased volatility and uncertainty, combined with increased complexity and ambiguity. Or as the US military would describe it, a VUCA world. The result will likely be to create winners and losers in the industry on a scale that we haven’t seen for decades.
The key issue is that the industry has to embark on a paradigm shift and become demand-led again. This means reversing the switch to become supply-driven that took place during the SuperCycle, when demand was always growing. Then, over a relatively short space of time, companies stopped sanctioning projects on the basis of signed customer contracts, and instead began to forecast future growth as simply a multiple of expected GDP growth.
Now, they will have to go back to the earlier way of working, and refocus on anticipating and meeting future market needs. This will likely involve the development of a more service-led approach, based on re-discovering the importance of experienced techno-commercial people working with customers on the ground. And they will need support from capable R&D teams who can translate the needs they uncover into new products and services
These changes will not be easy to deliver, given the scale of the external challenges created by the recession risk, volatile oil markets, trade wars and the rise of the sustainability agenda. But the major increase in US ethylene equivalent exports now underway means that, unfortunately, there appear to be few hiding places available as the combination of these challenges will inevitably change the nature of industry competition.
Helpfully, however, we can see that key customer industries are already going through the same transition, and so can provide examples of what we need to do. In the auto industry, for example, the rise of electric vehicles means that lifetime cost rather than initial price is becoming the key metric for buyers, with range becoming the new horsepower, connectivity replacing cylinder count, and sustainability becoming the new status symbol. The winning chemical industry companies of the future will likely therefore be those who recognise that revenue and profit growth will be generated not from the value of the product itself, but from the value provided by the product.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2019/03/21/10337467/market-outlook-stormy-weather-ahead-for-chemicals/
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(ACC Mentioned) US February Chem Production Declines 0.4%
Mar 21, 2019 | ICIS
US chemical production fell by 0.4% in February from January, with lower output across all regions, particularly in the Gulf Coast and Ohio Valley, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) said on Thursday.
The ACC’s US Chemical Production Regional Index (US CPRI) decrease in February followed gains of 0.2% in January and 0.5% in December.
By segment, US chemical production was mixed over the three-month period.
Output rose in inorganic chemicals, synthetic rubber, fertilizers, consumer products, manufactured fibres and other specialty chemicals.
However, those were offset by declines in the output of plastic resins, organic chemicals, adhesives, pesticides and coatings.
Year on year, US chemical production in February remained up by 4.4%, with higher output across all regions.
The following table shows the regional percentage change of the ACC’s US CPRI in February, seasonally adjusted on a three-month moving average.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2019/03/21/10337479/us-february-chem-production-declines-04-/
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Trump Taps Tech Official for Top Science Role
Mar 22, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Christa Marshall
President Trump last night announced he will nominate Michael Kratsios to become the country's chief technology officer — a position that has been vacant for more than two years and could sway national energy policy.
Kratsios, who has served as deputy chief technology officer since the beginning of the administration, will also be nominated as associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, according to a statement.
Kratsios helped lead the science office in the first half of the administration as part of a "triumvirate" (Greenwire, Feb. 6). The Senate confirmed Oklahoma meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier as OSTP director in January.
If he becomes chief technology officer, Kratsios would influence multiple areas that intersect with the energy sector, including supercomputing and artificial intelligence.
The science office also is involved with a review of the nuclear industry. Former President Obama created the CTO position a decade ago.
Kratsios, 32, has ties to White House adviser Peter Thiel and once worked as chief of staff at Thiel Capital LLC.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/03/22/stories/1060127929
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Lawmakers Renew Calls for EPA Risk Evaluation Transparency
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Courtney Columbus and Corbin Hiar
Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) are once again calling for EPA to release the health and safety studies it used in the risk evaluation of pigment violet 29.
EPA in November published its draft risk evaluation, which concluded that PV29 "does not present an unreasonable risk of injury to human health or the environment." But the evaluation said the studies were not publicly available because they were "confidential business information."
However, Pallone and Tonko say the Toxic Substances Control Act "does not allow health and safety studies submitted under the Act or used by the EPA under the Act to be protected as Confidential Business Information (CBI). EPA's decision to label those health and safety studies as CBI was contrary to the statute and has impaired transparency."
The letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler added, "Although we received a response from you on February 15 acknowledging that the studies were not eligible for protection under TSCA, EPA did not provide the requested studies. We are, therefore, forced to renew that request."
Pallone is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Tonko heads the Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee. The duo had asked EPA in January to release the studies used in the evaluation (Greenwire, Jan. 31).
In February, EPA responded to the lawmakers' request but did not provide the studies.
EPA "is currently undergoing the process to make a determination on whether the studies are entitled to confidential treatment," Associate Administrator Troy Lyons wrote.
"Upon completion of the CBI substantiation process, the Agency may be able to release additional information and studies. The Agency is committed to transparency and the public review and comment process while, at the same time, ensuring adequate protection for properly substantiated CBI."
The PV29 review has been scrutinized by Congress, industry and public health advocates both because it's the first draft evaluation EPA has completed since the passage of TSCA reform and because of the safety record of Sun Chemical Corp., the only U.S. manufacturer of PV29.
In 2015, the New Jersey-based pigment company produced about 650,000 pounds of the chemical, according to EPA data cited in the evaluation.
Earlier this year, David Michaels, a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health, criticized EPA's draft PV29 review, saying it was "filled with unsupported or incorrect assumptions and conclusions regarding worker exposures and associated protective measures."
Michaels, who was the Obama-era head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, also noted that two Sun Chemical workers have died on the job since November 2011.
Sun Chemical and EPA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/03/21/stories/1060127889
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Democrats Attack EPA's New CBI Claim to Force Release of TSCA Studies
Mar 22, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
House Democrats are renewing their push to force EPA to release studies that form the basis of its draft assessment of a pigment chemical, its first such assessment of an existing chemical under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), saying new agency claims that the studies are confidential business information (CBI) are wrong.
“We are alarmed by your efforts to skirt the balanced system of CBI protection established by the [revised TSCA] and reiterate our request for the health and safety studies considered in your draft risk evaluation on [pigment violet 29 (PV29)],” Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Paul Tonko (D-NY), chairman of its environment panel, write in a March 21 letter to Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
The lawmakers reject new EPA claims that the studies are subject to general CBI protections, rather than those spelled out in TSCA, arguing that the 2016 law eliminates such protection for “any” health and safety study submitted to the agency.
The Democrats request that EPA provide the requested studies to the committee and the public by March 25.
Because EPA's draft PV29 assessment is the first such study the agency has conducted under the 2016 law, the dispute over the studies' release is a test case of the extent to which the agency can cite CBI protections to withhold health and safety studies that it relies on.
As such, several groups have already suggested the potential for legal challenges over EPA's decision to withhold the two dozen studies that form the basis of the assessment as CBI, among other issues. They argued that TSCA does not allow for health and safety studies to be withheld as CBI, and submitted both letters and a FOIA request demanding their release.
Pallone and Tonko raised similar concerns in an earlier letter to EPA on the issue.
In a rare admission, EPA's toxics chief, Alexandra Dunn, conceded recently that the agency made a “mistake” when it cited TSCA authority for withholding the PV29 studies as CBI. “The draft risk evaluation made a mistake. It incorrectly described the studies as TSCA CBI,” Dunn told a chemical industry summit earlier this month.
She distinguished between TSCA's CBI provisions and “regular” CBI, saying the agency was reviewing the CBI claims “to determine whether the studies are entitled to confidential treatment and we are substantiating the CBI claims.”
Dunn said that based on the review, “we may be able to release additional information about the studies.”
Troy Lyons, associate administrator of EPA's Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations, provided additional detail on the agency's review in a Feb. 15 letter released by the lawmakers March 21.
He explained that as staff sought to develop the PV29 draft assessment, they asked European companies to voluntarily provide studies they had conducted of PV29 to comply with European chemicals law.
“In its request, the EPA provided the companies the ability to assert [CBI] claims . . . for 'voluntarily submitted information' pursuant to the EPA's general [CBI] regulations,” citing 40 CFR part 2, subpart B, §§ 2.201-2.215, rather than with CBI claims under TSCA section 14.
He said that “[b]ecause TSCA section 14(b)(2) applies only to those health and safety studies that are 'submitted under' the Act, the TSCA section 14 CBI provisions do not apply to voluntarily submitted studies. As such, the draft risk evaluation incorrectly described the studies as TSCA CBI.”
'Argument Is Contradicted'
Pallone and Tonko were not persuaded, however, and argue that EPA must publish the studies. “EPA's decision to label those studies as CBI was contrary to the statute and has impaired transparency and public participation in the comment period for the PV29 risk evaluation,” the say.
“We appreciate your concession that the specific CBI provisions in TSCA do not support the protection of any health and safety studies as CBI. However, we take issue with your argument that you have separate, additional authority to mask health and safety information used under TSCA because that argument is contradicted by the plain language of the statute and your own regulations.”
The congressmen argue that TSCA's CBI language, contained in section 14 “applies, by its plain wording, to 'any health and safety study submitted under this Act' and to 'any information reported to, or otherwise obtained by, the Administrator from a health and safety study' on a chemical offered for distribution in commerce. . . . The studies are thus excluded from protection under TSCA section 14(b)(2)(B) because of your use of them, regardless of how they were obtained.”
And Pallone and Tonko argue that EPA's implementing regulations for TSCA section 14 “make clear that the studies should also be excluded from [CBI] protection under TSCA section 14(b)(2)(A).” They point to EPA's implementing regulation at 40 CFR section 2.306, which states “[i]nformation will be considered to have been provided under the Act if the information could have been obtained under the authority of the Act, whether the Act was cited as authority or not . . .”
The congressmen further argue that EPA's own regulations regarding the general CBI requirements at “40 CFR section 2.202 states clearly that 'the basic rules of section 2.201 through 2.215 govern except to the extent that they are modified or supplanted by the special rules of section 2.301 through 2.311.' As stated above, section 2.306 provides special rules for information obtained under TSCA. Section 2.202 also establishes a preference for disclosure by stating that in cases of a conflict between two special rules, 'the rule which provides greater or wider availability to the public of the information shall govern.'
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/democrats-attack-epas-new-cbi-claim-force-release-tsca-studies
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New TSCA Labelling Requirements for Composite Wood Products to go into Effect March 22, 2019
Mar 21, 2019 | National Law Review
By Leila Nourani and Zoe E. Tremayne
Employees can sue for unsafe work environment. At Jackson Lewis, we pride ourselves in providing advice to employers on how to prevent or minimize workplace related claims. Employers are obligated to warn consumers and employees of any risks involved with exposure to products or space exhibiting certain levels of chemicals. This article addresses the new TSCA rules that employers should look into to protect themselves from notice of violations and claims, not only from consumers, but from their own employees who might be exposed to chemicals.
On December 12, 2016, a final rule to implement the Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act, which added Title VI to the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”) was published in the Federal Register. The purpose of TSCA Title VI is to reduce exposure to formaldehyde emissions from certain wood products produced domestically or imported into the United States. The EPA worked with the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) to help ensure the final national rule was consistent with California’s already existing requirements, including labelling requirements, for similar composite wood products, i.e. hardwood plywood, particleboard, and medium density fiberboard.
Included in TSCA Title VI were new labelling requirements for fabricators of finished goods that contain composite word products. These labelling requirements have a two-stage implementation. First, beginning on June 1, 2018, composite wood products sold, supplied, offered for sale, manufactured, or imported in the United States are required to be labeled as CARB ATCM Phase II or TSCA Title VI compliant. The practical impact of this first stage was minimal, in that products only needed to be labelled consistent with already existing California CARB labelling requirements in order to comply with TSCA Title VI.
However, on March 22, 2019, the second stage comes into effect. Beginning on this date, composite wood products must be labeled as TSCA Title VI compliant, and just having a label indicating California CARB II compliance is no longer sufficient.
In order to be compliant with the new TSCA Title VI labelling requirements, fabricators of finished goods that contain composite wood products must label every finished good they produce, or every box or bundle containing finished goods.
Finished goods that comply with TSCA Title VI and are labeled as TSCA Title VI compliant will be accepted as being compliant with California CARB’s standards, because the TSCA Title VI and CARB standards are identical. However, CARB recommends labeling panels and finished goods offered for sale in California as being compliant with both sets of regulations, because retailers and consumers are familiar with the CARB Phase II label already.
In order for a label to be both California CARB II and federal TSCA Title VI Compliant as of March 22, 2019, it is recommended that both the finished good and/or its box is labelled as follows:The label may be applied as a stamp, tag, or sticker;The label must include, in legible English text:Fabricator’s name;The date the finished good was produced (in month/year format);A statement that the finished goods are TSCA Title VI compliant, i.e. “TSCA Title VI Compliant” or similar;A marking to denote that the finished goods are CARB Phase II Compliant, i.e. “California 93120 Phase 2 Compliant for Formaldehyde” or similar;If all of the composite wood product used in the finished good was made with no-added formaldehyde-based resins, or ultra low-emitting formaldehyde resins it shall be labelled as such, e.g. “Produced with all NAF-based products” or “Produced with all ULEF-based products.”
The regulations specify the minimum information required for a label, but do not specify the format, color, size, or font for the label. These choices are left to the fabricator of finished goods to allow flexibility to meet the needs of individual companies. The required information may be on a separate label or incorporated into other existing labels. Individual companies may include any additional information they deem necessary. The label should be in a location that is easily accessible.
Importers, distributors, and retailers must leave intact labels on finished goods, including component parts sold separately to end users. However, they do not have any additional labelling requirements, as long as they have not modified the finished goods.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-tsca-labelling-requirements-composite-wood-products-to-go-effect-march-22-2019
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LA County Bans Monsanto Weed Killer Citing Health Concerns
Mar 21, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Chris Mills Rodrigo
Los Angeles County this week issued a moratorium on the use of Monsanto's Roundup weed killer, citing the need for more research into its active ingredient, an NBC News affiliate reported.
The move by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday came the same day that a federal jury in San Francisco delivered a verdict in favor of Edward Hardeman, who said his cancer was caused by exposure to Roundup.
More than 50 U.S. cities and counties have banned the chemical, the most commonly used herbicide in the world.
Across the country, Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto last year, faces more than 11,000 similar lawsuits alleging that glyphosate causes cancer.
The World Health Organization in 2015 classified glyphosate as a "probable human carcinogen.” The Environmental Protection Agency says the weed killer has low toxicity for humans is not likely to cause cancer.
Environmental groups praised Los Angeles's decision.
“Kicking Bayer-Monsanto and its cancer-causing weedkiller off L.A. County property was absolutely the right call,” Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said in a statement. “We know glyphosate causes cancer in people and shouldn’t be sprayed anywhere – period. We don’t know how many Angelenos have been exposed to this dangerous chemical through its use by the county, but we can keep others from being exposed.”
Monsanto did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/435169-la-county-bans-monsanto-weedkiller-citing-health-concerns
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LNG Exports Highlight Climate Clash at Energy Regulator
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Cunningham
Venture Global LNG Inc.’s $5 billion Calcasieu Pass Liquefied Natural Gas terminal in Louisiana is the latest flash point in federal regulators’ ongoing battle over climate change.
After the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the project in February, the panel’s Democratic commissioners called for more rigorous climate-impact analysis of future LNG projects.
Cheryl LaFleur, the longest serving commissioner at the agency, said March 21 that the commission should be analyzing the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of projects, while Richard Glick argued that developers could choose -- or be required -- to offset their emissions.
“It would not be hard to do and I suspect the price would be a tiny fraction of the total costs of a project,” he said at the agency’s monthly meeting.
Both commissioners said environmental mitigation efforts should include climate mitigation, which would be a significant change for the agency and underscores how divided the commission has become over the issue of climate change.
Their comments come on the heels of a federal court decision ordering the halt of oil and gas exploration on more than 300,000 acres in Wyoming because of the government’s failure to account for its cumulative effect on climate change.
Republican Chairman Neil Chatterjee nevertheless downplayed the division, saying the commission has “a good path forward” on greenhouse gas emissions and “I feel quite good about the trajectory we are on.“
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/lng-exports-highlight-climate-clash-at-energy-regulator
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Trump Has a Plan to Preserve Benefits for Oil Drillers in Future
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
A top Interior Department official told oil industry leaders the Trump administration is seeking to sign contracts leasing new coastal waters for oil drilling under favorable terms that will be difficult for future presidents to revoke or rewrite.
Joe Balash, the assistant secretary for land and minerals management, outlined that approach to oil industry leaders attending an International Association of Geophysical Contractors conference in Houston last month, according to audio obtained by Bloomberg News.
“When it comes to our specific royalty terms -- anything that’s under contract -- we still enjoy the sanctity of contracts in this country and I expect that’s going to last for some time,” Balash told the IAGC conference. “So getting our leases out -- and out on terms that are competitive and have the ability to sustain the long life of a property once it goes into production -- is also key.”
The Interior Department is already developing a new five-year plan of offshore oil and gas leases that could give energy companies opportunities to vie for virgin territory in the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans. But at the conference, Balash was pressed to describe how the Interior Department also is pursuing policy changes that would make the U.S. more attractive to oil companies eyeing cheaper prospects in South America -- and ensure they will endure whenever a new president enters the White House.
That could include lowering royalty rates that energy companies pay the U.S. government on any oil and gas extracted from federal waters. An Interior Department advisory committee has recommended slashing royalty rates for offshore oil and gas production, but so far, the Trump administration has not followed the advice.
Leases set terms for royalty payments that can govern oil production at some offshore sites for decades to come.
Balash also stressed the importance of taking “advantage of the opportunities to open up some of our own areas that have not yet been fully explored” and signaled those areas included the Atlantic Ocean, where the government has given geophysical companies initial authorizations to conduct seismic surveys designed to help seek out potential oil and gas reserves. At least some of those firms were present at the IAGC conference, according to meeting documents.
Representatives of the Interior Department did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trump-has-a-plan-to-preserve-benefits-for-oil-drillers-in-future
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Senators Ready Wish Lists for Murkowski, Manchin Energy Bill
Mar 22, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
The Senate wants to be prepared if House Democrats move clean energy and climate change bills.
So senators from both parties are compiling wish lists if a comprehensive energy bill—something Congress hasn’t passed in 12 years—begins moving later this year. Their lists contain measures ranging from tax incentives to new technologies.
Significant backing exists to extend wind and solar tax incentives and adding battery energy storage to that mix; to boost funding of research into next-generation energy technologies; and to support commercial deployment of carbon capture technology that separates carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from other emissions of power plants and other facilities so it can be permanently stored or used.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, say they’re still in early talks on pursuing a sweeping energy package such as the one that passed the Senate three years ago, but then became bogged down in negotiations with the House.
Bill Coming in Summer, or Later
Murkowski said she won’t unveil energy legislation until July at the earliest. Expect a “newly refreshed energy bill that is going to focus on these big-ticket items: efficiency, renewables, and resilience” to climate impacts, she recently told reporters.
But like other Republicans, Murkowski remains fiercely opposed to the ambitious House climate policies floated in the Green New Deal resolution.
“While some are using the microphone and their platform to promise the sun, the moon, and stars tomorrow, what we’re trying to do is focus on the real pragmatic approaches that not only are there things that we can think about tomorrow, there are some we can put in place and act on today,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski also has hinted at a fallback position of moving individual energy bills in lieu of a broader package.
‘More Interest’
Manchin is more optimistic on the prospects for wide-ranging energy legislation, pointing to the broad conservation-lands package (Pub. L. No. 116-9) that President Donald Trump signed March 12. It permanently extends the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is financed with receipts from oil and gas drilling, at $900 million a year.
“I think now there’s more interest” in an energy package with that success, the coal-state Democrat predicted, and he wants any energy bill to focus on technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide.
“We need a pragmatic approach to an all-in energy policy that provides the research and development we need and finding a new technology” for continuing to use fossil fuels, the coal-state Democrat said.
Some Senate Democrats say they will insist climate is front and center in energy legislation.
“We have got to start taking action,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
But legislation on climate has gained little traction among GOP senators, with Maine’s Susan Collins among the few exceptions.
“We need to have an agenda on the environment and climate change,” Collins said of her party.
Variety of Ideas
Other senators said they’re readying their ideas:
· Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, is drafting legislation to scrap 44 separate tax breaks for the oil and other fossil fuel industries and replace them with incentives for clean energy and storing wind and solar energy, including battery storage. The new incentives would be performance-based, he said, and technology-neutral, in that any form of energy could benefit as long as they met the efficiency and low-carbon requirements. Wyden, along with Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), also is pushing for a series of incentives, known as tax extenders, to resurrect biofuel and other tax breaks that expired when the Senate failed to take up a House-passed bill at the end of 2018.
· Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, said his priorities remain continuing to advance nuclear power and technologies that either store carbon dioxide or find profitable ways to re-use the greenhouse gas in manufacturing and the other sectors. “Enhanced oil recovery works and does well to sequester a lot of carbon, but the global future is making carbon into a valuable product,” he said.
· Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) is drafting an energy storage tax incentive bill with Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) to boost development of battery technology for storing excess production from wind and solar energy. An aide to Heinrich said expect the bill after Congress returns the week of March 25.
· Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) wants increased carbon capture incentives, as does Barrasso, but is focused more on deployment. “We have the technical ability to do it, the technology,” he said. “The key is, we need to get to commercial viability.”
· Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who chairs the Commerce, Science, and Transportation panel, backs policies to build on the recent surge in U.S. exports of crude oil and liquefied natural gas over the last two years. On natural gas production, he said, “We’re at a point where we realize we’re the Saudi Arabia of the world. We should free up folks who don’t want to be dependent on Russia anymore” by boosting LNG exports to Europe.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/senators-ready-wish-lists-for-murkowski-manchin-energy-bill
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Links Between Fracking, Earthquakes Remain Elusive, Canadian Report Finds
Mar 21, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Gordon Jaremko
Links between hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and earthquakes, and predicting and preventing the tremors, remain riddles requiring far more scientific study, according to a report commissioned by the British Columbia (BC) government.
Only 0.3% of fracking and 1% of waste disposal by western Canadian wells since 1985 shook the ground -- and explanations for the cases remain elusive, said the report, “Scientific Review of Hydraulic Fracturing in British Columbia.”
“AIS [anomalous induced seismicity] is observed in clusters and not scattered across a region with active fluid-injection operations,” according to an inquiry panel of three experts from technical specialties involved in natural gas, liquid byproducts and oil extraction.
“Differentiating why certain areas are more susceptible to AIS, understanding the variability within susceptible areas and accurately forecasting whether a fluid-injection operation is susceptible to AIS are key challenges.”
Improved measurements of subterranean rock, water and forces are needed to close fracking knowledge gaps.
“Forecasting whether a specific operation will induce anomalous seismicity requires physics-based modeling with accurate hydro-geomechanical parameters.”
Detection of earth tremors with suspected industry causes has multiplied since 2013, when BC quadrupled to eight the number of its seismic activity observation stations in northern shale drilling regions. Sensitive instruments register even tiny tremors.
BC has linked 129 subterranean tremors to drilling in its richest shale target, the Montney formation. Of four tremors that were strong enough to be felt on the ground surface as earthquakes, two are attributed to fracking injections, one to fluid disposal and one to both types of industry operations.
A single Montney well was associated with two earthquakes last fall and prompted the BC Oil & Gas Commission (BCOGC) to suspend all fracking in the region for a one-month review and improvement of drilling plans.
The inquiry recommends strengthening BCOGC earthquake prevention by requiring assessments of naturally vulnerable underground rock faults for all fracking wells and following an Alberta example of mapping sensitive spots in geological formations.
The fracking report’s account of earthquake knowledge gaps is part of a 236-page recital of technical uncertainties that also covers pollution emissions, health, and water quantity, quality and use issues.
“The very rapid development of shale gas in northeastern B.C. has made it difficult to assure that risks are being adequately managed at every step. Furthermore, the panel could not quantify risk because there are too few data to assess risk.”
But the report adds, “Nevertheless, it is the view of the panel that the current regulations under many acts appear to be robust.”
No fracking ban is recommended. No plans to halt drilling have emerged in the B.C. government, which has granted supportive tax breaks to a CDN$40-billion (US$30-billion) liquefied natural gas export terminal, pipeline and shale supply development now under construction.
An energy ministry statement says a “phased approach” will be adopted to respond to 97 technical recommendations by the fracking report. The ministry says, “Over the last 18 months, government has implemented a number of changes to strengthen the regulatory framework for the oil and gas industry. Much of this work addresses concerns raised by the scientific panel.”
As a textbook on fracking methods, knowledge gaps and uncertainties, the inquiry report became instant ammunition for a environmental protest caravan seeking a B.C. counterpart to bans enacted by Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Free public forums reciting fracking risks are being held in B.C. centers including the provincial capital, Victoria, by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, David Suzuki Foundation, Force of Nature, My Sea to Sky, Sierra Club B.C., Quest University and Watershed Sentinel. Star speakers include Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/117787-links-between-fracking-earthquakes-remain-elusive-canadian-report-finds
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EPA Must Develop Plans for Chemical Facilities, Groups Say
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
A coalition of environmental groups seeks to compel the EPA to issue regulations mandating that chemical facilities develop plans to prevent, mitigate and respond to spills of hazardous substances.
The EPA has failed to comply with a 1990 mandate to issue the regulations by August 1992, according to a new suit filed March 21 in a federal court in New York.
As part of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, Congress amended the Clean Water Act to address the worst chemical spills, and gave the EPA a two-year deadline to issue regulations.
Recent hazardous substance spills—including a 2017 release of 34,000 pounds of sodium hydroxide from a Chevron Phillips chemical plant in Baytown, Texas during flooding from Hurricane Harvey—show the need for worst case spill regulations, the complaint says.
Causes of Action: Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251(a); Oil Pollution Act of 1990, 33 U.S.C. § 1321(j)(5)(A)(i).
Relief: Declaratory and injunctive relief; attorneys’ fees and costs.
Response: A spokesperson for EPA said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Attorneys: Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. represents the plaintiffs.
The case is Environmental Justice Health All. for Chem. Policy Reform v. United States, S.D.N.Y., No. 19-cv-2516, 3/21/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-must-develop-plans-for-chemical-facilities-groups-say
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After Houston Fire, Danger Grows as Benzene Clouds Shut Suburb
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joe Carroll and Ben Foldy
Now that the four-day fire is out at a Houston-area chemical storage complex, the real danger has emerged.
Cancer-causing toxics are wafting across the eastern suburbs of the fourth-largest U.S. city, shutting roads, schools and industrial plants, and disrupting everyday life for tens of thousands of people.
Oil refineries in the heart of North America’s most important fuel-producing region told workers to stay home early March 21 and the cities of Deer Park and Galena Park told everyone to shut their windows and stay inside.
The toxic fumes detected hours before dawn have panicked Houstonians normally accustomed to orange flares from the warren of refinery and chemical plant smokestacks that stretch to the eastern horizon. Even when the chemical fire erupted March 17 and sent a black anvil of smoke a mile above the city, many residents were nonchalant.
But with the fire at Intercontinental Terminals Co.’s storage complex extinguished, the situation is actually more treacherous because the pools of naphtha and other crude-oil byproducts at the site are no longer burning off -- and are free to evaporate from the ground.
“This is a real risk to human health, not theoretical,” said Elena Craft, senior director for climate and health at the Environmental Defense Fund. “Benzene is a known carcinogen, and no amount is safe to breathe. We urge everyone, especially pregnant women, to be vigilant.”
Police barricaded roads in Deer Park, 18 miles (29 kilometers) east of downtown Houston, after a brief overnight flare-up at Intercontinental’s facility, where fire crews continue to douse several charred storage tanks with water and foam to cool the smoldering remnants.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc told workers at its nearby 275,000 barrel-a-day Deer Park refinery to stay at home or remain inside if they’ve already arrived at work. The refinery’s operations are normal, said Ray Fisher, a Shell spokesman.
The benzene levels detected “are below those that represent an immediate risk,” Intercontinental said in a statement. The company notified “surrounding municipalities and out of an abundance of caution Deer Park Emergency Operations Center has called for shelter in place precautions immediately for all of Deer Park.”
Refinery Impact
Part of State Highway 225, which many workers use to get to work at nearby refineries and terminals, has been shut down. The highway closure affects an 8-mile stretch through the heart of refining and chemical country, snarling traffic all over the east side of Houston.
Workers at LyondellBasell Industries NV’s Houston refinery continue to operate the facility, according to Kimberly Windon, a company spokeswoman. Petroleo Brasilerio SA didn’t respond to an email seeking comment on the status of its refinery in the suburb of Pasadena.
“We know this is concerning, especially to residents in the area of the shelter in place,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in a statement. “We are continuing to monitor to verify if this is a short-term, one time exposure or a longer exposure. At the level of benzene we are seeing now for the current duration it should not cause symptoms even in the area impacted.”
The Deer Park Independent School District, La Porte ISD and Galena Park ISD have canceled school for March 21.
--With assistance from Barbara Powell and Mario Parker.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/after-houston-fire-danger-grows-as-benzene-clouds-shut-suburb
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Explosion at Chemical Plant in Eastern China Kills at Least 47
Mar 21, 2019 | Wall Street Journal
By Chun Han Wong
An explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China killed at least 47 people and injured hundreds of others, state media and local authorities said.
The blast ripped through an industrial zone in Yancheng city, Jiangsu province, about 2:48 p.m. local time Thursday, the municipal government said on its official microblog. On Friday morning, some 640 people were receiving hospital treatment, including 32 in critical condition and 58 others with serious injuries, the Yancheng government said.
Some 930 firefighters and more than 190 vehicles were dispatched to the scene, according to the Yancheng government. More than 3,000 workers in the industrial zone and nearly 1,000 residents living nearby have been moved to safer areas, it said.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the blast. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is in Italy for a state visit, ordered officials to learn lessons from the incident, step up safety checks and take measures to “firmly prevent” major accidents, according to state broadcaster China Central Television.
State media said the plant—a benzene production facility run by Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical Co.—is located near residential areas, with a kindergarten less than a mile away.
The Yancheng government said the company employed 195 people and that police have placed “relevant personnel” under “control.”
Tianjiayi didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Videos purportedly shot at the scene circulated widely on social media, showing people—including children—bleeding, as well as damaged vehicles and smoldering buildings. The videos also included footage showing a large blast at the plant, the shattering of windows in nearby buildings, and thick plumes of smoke rising from the site.
China’s earthquake administration said a 2.2-magnitude tremor—possibly caused by an explosion—was detected in an adjacent county.
Government inspectors found many safety hazards in Tianjiayi’s operations early last year, including inadequate processes for preventing leaks of hazardous chemicals and poor fire-safety management, according to a February 2018 notice issued by China’s workplace-safety watchdog.
Major industrial accidents occur from time to time in China, though workplace safety has improved significantly in the past decade. In 2015, an explosion at a hazardous-chemicals warehouse killed 173 people in the northeastern port city of Tianjin. A November blast caused by a leak from a state-owned petrochemical factory in Xuanhua county, northwest of Beijing, killed 23 people.
—Yang Jie contributed to this article.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/explosion-at-chemical-plant-in-eastern-china-kills-at-least-six-11553173143?mod=article_inline
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Has Another Disaster Been Prevented?
Mar 22, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Kelsey Brugger and Erica Martinson
This Sunday will mark 30 years since the fateful night when the Exxon Valdez crashed into Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound, forever changing international oil shipping standards.
Since the disaster, oil transportation in the world's vast oceans has improved. Volume of oil spilled by tanker has trended downward. Monitoring technology has advanced. Awareness worldwide has heightened.
But some worry that the provisions have become outdated and that prevention, rather than cleanup, should be the focus, particularly in newly expanding shipping through Alaska's Arctic waters.
"Once a spill has happened, you have basically lost the war," said former marine conservation professor Rick Steiner, who was in nearby Cordova, Alaska, the night the 987-foot-long oil tanker ran aground.
At 12:04 a.m. on Friday, March 24, 1989, the cracked hull of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spilled 11 million gallons of crude into the milky, aqua-blue waters of Prince William Sound, devastating wildlife and the environment in one of the most significant and well-televised environmental disasters in American history.
The oil ultimately reached 1,300 miles of shoreline and killed thousands of animals, with some species never to recover.
People protested in the streets of Anchorage and across the country. Americans were inundated with images of oil-covered birds and sea lions, and dead whales washed ashore, amid a volume of oil equal to 125 Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to the National Park Service.
What many Americans remember about the fateful crash was the role played by the alleged intoxication of the captain, Joseph Hazelwood.
But the response to the spill was wide-ranging. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which followed, implemented measures meant to protect against the many things that went wrong that night.
A lot changed about how oil tankers move and operate, and oil spilled from tankers has dropped by more than 90 percent since then, Andrés Morales, director of prevention and response at Alyeska Pipeline, told Alaska Public Radio earlier this month.
The law, signed by President George H.W. Bush, updated federal maritime oversight and phased in double hull tankers over the next 25 years, a standard the International Maritime Organization ultimately adopted worldwide.
It also mandated citizen oversight and formed the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council.
And it required captains to be drug tested. The National Transportation Safety Board ultimately attributed some of the blame to Hazelwood's "impairment from alcohol" and Exxon's "failure" to provide a rested, sufficient crew, though Hazelwood was never convicted of a crime.
Other possible issues included the ship's third mate being tired and overworked, a failure on the part of the Coast Guard to offer an effective vessel traffic system, and a lack of useful "pilot" and escort vessels, according to NTSB.
Billions have been spent to clean up Prince William Sound, and today, oil transport in the sound has become a carefully controlled enterprise. Each ship has tugboats escort it from port to ocean to help steer and respond if necessary.
Alaska has a much more intensive ship escort and response vessel system, and an ocean rescue tugboat is stationed at the entrance to Prince William Sound to assist tankers. Intensive training is required for a wide range of safety officers and tanker pilots. The Coast Guard has a more detailed ship-tracking system, and ships are equipped with ice radar.
The state and federal government settled on about $1 billion in restoration funds, but litigation for harmed Alaskans stretched on for 26 years to settle how much Exxon Shipping Co. should pay.
The 1990 law actually banned the vessel Exxon Valdez — renamed the Exxon Mediterranean after it was fixed up — from operating in Prince William Sound, according to NOAA. The ship was ultimately renamed several times: the Sea River Mediterranean, the Dong Fang Ocean and ultimately the Oriental Nicety, once sold for scrap and ultimately beached in 2012.
'We really need to double down'
Alaskans have not forgotten the impact of the 1989 spill, and some are worried that the improvements it brought on are severely outdated.
"The answer 30 years ago is not the answer today," said Ed Page, executive director of Marine Exchange of Alaska. "We really need to double down on prevention."
But most of the changes since 1989 have centered on responding to spills rather than preventing them.
And environmentalists say, at that point, it's too late.
Page, who was in the Coast Guard in 1989, likened regulating spill prevention to policing auto traffic.
"If you have a police car or radar gun every 200 yards, you wouldn't have anyone speeding," he said, adding that the Coast Guard instead puts "an ambulance every quarter-mile."
Steiner, the former marine conservation professor, said, "Spill response simply does not work, never have and likely never will."
There are remaining environmental impacts from the Exxon Valdez spill, 30 years later.
Crude oil residue can still be found on the shores of Alaska.
As many as 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, 22 killer whales, and billions of salmon and herring eggs were estimated to have been killed in the spill, though most carcasses sank, making it difficult to count accurately, according to the National Park Service. The Pacific herring, pigeon guillemot and marbled murrelet have not recovered, according to the state.
A genetically distinct pod of orcas that was particularly hard hit by the spill is not expected to recover. There are only seven left, and no reproductive females. Research shows they will go extinct, Steiner said on Alaska Public Media's "Talk of Alaska" earlier this month.
Steiner, an environmental activist, has called for further protections in the Bering Strait, the ribbon of the Pacific separating Alaska and Russia, where the shipping season is growing longer in the wake of climate change.
"We need a powerful ocean rescue tug stationed in Bering Strait during the [ice-free] shipping season to escort all ships," he said.
Steiner ticked off a number of what he called necessary measures: "site-specific vessel speed restrictions, marine mammal strike avoidance technologies/measures and observers, vessel size and hazardous cargo restrictions, prohibition on use of heavy fuel," among other things.
He argued that the money to do those things is in the bank, if only Congress would make it available, pointing to the $6.5 million sitting in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. For nearly 30 years, oil companies paid a 9-cent-per-barrel tax on crude at the refinery.
The fund was initially set up before the spill, but lawmakers crafted legislation directing federal officials on how to spend the money after Exxon Valdez.
But no more. Congress did not renew authorization for the fund last year, and it expired Jan. 1. Environmentalists argue that means a 9-cent-per-barrel windfall for oil companies.
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a bill last month that included an amendment that would extend the fund (E&E News PM, Feb. 28).
Reporters Michael Doyle and Jeremy P. Jacobs contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/03/22/stories/1060127925
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Colorado Ozone Fight Tests EPA Expansion of Foreign Emissions Waivers
Mar 21, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Local business groups in Colorado are urging the state to ask EPA for a less-severe “nonattainment” designation for the agency’s ozone ambient air limit by citing a Clean Air Act (CAA) waiver that would blame foreign emissions for its inability to meet the standard, posing an early testing of the Trump administration’s push to expand use of the waiver.
Previous administrations have limited the geographic scope of the air law’s section 179(B), which allows areas already categorized out of attainment with federal ozone standards to avoid being reclassified to a more severe level of nonattainment -- which brings with it additional time to comply but also harsher control requirements -- if they can show they would otherwise meet a less-stringent nonattainment status “but for” air pollution from other countries.
However, the Trump EPA in a Dec. 6 final rule abandoned this position, advocating instead that the waiver be available to all areas that can meet the “but for” standard.
As a result, the local business groups’ push for Colorado to rely on section 179(B) to win a weaker nonattainment designation from EPA poses an important early test of the policy shift.
And it contrasts with efforts by Texas, which is suing EPA to reverse a nonattainment designation for Bexar County, in metropolitan San Antonio. Texas asserts the right to make nonattainment decisions itself and not be second-guessed by EPA. EPA in that dispute counters that Texas cannot rely on predictions of future attainment, and that current air monitoring shows Bexar County violating the ozone NAAQS.
In Colorado, the local business and citizen body Defend Colorado petitioned the state to ask EPA for an exemption for international emissions under section 179B. Colorado invoking the provision could avoid a reclassification of the Denver Metro-North Front Range area from “moderate” to “serious” nonattainment if EPA agrees.
In Denver, this would mean tougher regulation of ozone-forming emissions from oil and gas drilling, and other sources. EPA may approve such a petition if the state can demonstrate it can meet the relevant national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) but for the foreign pollution.
Defend Colorado says it can meet this threshold, and objects to a directive from Gov. Jared Polis (D) for state air regulators not to request the exemption from EPA. States typically try to avoid nonattainment designations, or worsened nonattainment, because of the added burden for industry and regulators this brings. But states will in some instances accept or even encourage such designations where they believe it would benefit public health.
At a public hearing in Denver March 21, the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, a regulatory body, declined Defend Colorado’s request for a longer hearing to explore the group’s substantive arguments for a waiver.
The commission denied the petition on procedural grounds, finding that Defend Colorado lacks standing under state law to ask for another hearing. The group argued that Colorado should make the waiver request to EPA in conjunction with a May 1 submission the state will make to EPA to certify the accuracy of its air quality monitoring for 2016-2018.
But commenters at the hearing weighed in on the underlying policy issue, which will test the state’s discretion not to apply for a waiver when the exemption might be available, according to some air quality modeling.
Attainment Reviews
Industry groups at the hearing warned that a decision by the state to ignore such evidence risks undermining the integrity of the state’s air quality modeling and policy.
Environmentalists and municipal officials from Boulder County, meanwhile, argued that invoking the international waiver will do nothing to alleviate Denver’s high ozone levels, which they blame for a host of health problems. Ozone can be effectively reduced by controlling local sources, these groups argued.
The dispute will test the Trump EPA’s reinterpretation of section 179B. The provision has traditionally been used to help border areas avoid a “bump up” to serious nonattainment.
The Obama EPA in a 2016 proposal on implementation of the 2015 ozone NAAQS solicited public comment on whether it should limit use of the waiver to border areas only. The Obama EPA set the 2015 NAAQS at 70 parts per billion (ppb), tougher than the prior limit of 75 ppb set by the George W. Bush EPA in 2008.
In the Trump administration’s final ozone implementation rule, EPA said, “we are not adopting any geographic limitation on the use of CAA section 179B for purposes of the 2015 ozone NAAQS. We are instead clarifying that a demonstration prepared under CAA section 179B could consider emissions emanating from North American or intercontinental sources and is not restricted to areas adjoining international borders.”
This is consistent with the approach articulated in the preamble of the agency’s rule governing requirements for states to include in their state implementation plans (SIPs) detailing measures they will take to attain the earlier, weaker 2008 NAAQS, EPA said. In Denver, Defend Colorado’s petition relates to nonattainment of the 2008 standard. But similar arguments also apply to the tougher 2015 standard as well, industry commenters said at the March 21 hearing.
EPA in November proposed to give Denver an additional year to comply with the 2008 NAAQS rather than face an immediate “bump up” to “serious” status, prompting criticism from environmental groups that argue the region is not even close to attaining the limit.
In public comments on that Nov. 14 proposal, Defend Colorado urged EPA to “consider and account for the effect of international emissions on ozone concentrations throughout Colorado at this time and in future attainment date reviews.”
Defend Colorado has commissioned modeling from environmental consulting firm Ramboll, showing that international emissions contribute at least 5 ppb of ozone, and frequently, 6 ppb to 8 ppb, in the Denver area. Taking this into account for the period 2016-2018, this would reduce the number of ozone monitors showing violations of the NAAQS from four to none, said Ramboll consultant Courtney Taylor. This does not even take into account exemptions that the state could seek for “exceptional events” including wildfires, Taylor said.
State representatives from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said at the hearing that the May submission to EPA will be only a certification of monitoring data accuracy, not a broader recommendation of NAAQS attainment. Foreign emissions are “not part of the state’s inventory,” officials said. “The governor has directed us not to submit a section 179B demonstration."
Industry groups at the hearing took no explicit position on Defend Colorado’s petition, but in general expressed concern at Polis’ position and called for the state to account for international emissions. Groups making this point included the Colorado Petroleum Council and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.
‘Free Pass’
But attorney Robert Ukeiley, representing the Center for Biological Diversity, noted that section 179B falls under part of the Clean Air Act titled “international border areas,” and Colorado is not such an area.
“It is not supposed to be used in this context,” Ukeiley said. He said even the most ozone-polluted parts of the state could be brought down to a level of 53 ppb by addressing local sources of ozone.
“This petition was designed to give oil and gas companies a free pass to pollute our air. I’m glad the commission didn’t fall for it,” Ukeiley said in a March 21 statement. “The oil and gas industry is responsible for the vast majority of smog pollution in the region, which has been violating the federal smog standards for 15 years.” Ukeiley accuses Defense Colorado of being “mysterious” and not revealing its membership.
Ukeiley further pointed out an apparent contradiction with state precedent. Colorado has previously argued against inclusion of Weld County, to the north of Denver, in the Denver nonattainment area, despite its oil and gas-related emissions that contribute to ozone in Denver. If Weld County should be excluded, emissions from much farther afield should not be counted, he argued.
If Colorado retains its current position, the dispute will therefore test the willingness of the Trump EPA to defer to the state’s policy, in line with the administration’s policy of increased deference to states under the air law’s principle of “co-operative federalism.” EPA must approve states’ recommendations on NAAQS attainment.
Meanwhile, Texas in its dispute over designation of Bexar County as nonattainment for the 2015 ozone NAAQS is relying on a states’ rights argument under cooperative federalism to make its case. Texas is suing EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, trying to force an attainment finding for the county.
However, EPA in the suit accuses Texas of trying to “re-write” the air law’s division of responsibility, where states recommend attainment status, and EPA then approves it.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/colorado-ozone-fight-tests-epa-expansion-foreign-emissions-waivers
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Dem Divisions Deepen over Approach to Climate Change
Mar 22, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Centrist Democrats are pushing back on the fast-paced approach to climate change legislation preferred by “Green New Deal” supporters, arguing instead for a more gradual manner that they think will have a stronger chance of passing and reaching across the aisle.
The press by members of the New Democrat Coalition and other high-ranking lawmakers illustrates two competing views within the caucus: immediate, innovative legislation versus those who prefer slow, incremental legislating.
“The move is going to be gradual and we’re not going to do 100 percent [renewable energy] over 10 years,” Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a leader of the New Democrat Coalition’s climate change task force, told reporters last week when asked what kind of legislation the group would pursue.
It's a very different message than the one that came from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who both introduced the Green New Deal resolution in February.
Ocasio-Cortez called it a "comprehensive agenda of economic, social and racial justice," while Markey referred to the resolution as a time for the party to be “bold once again.”
The party division is likely to slow work by Democrats on climate change, and advocacy groups are growing frustrated by the inaction almost three months into the new House Democratic majority.
Meanwhile, Republicans are eager to exploit the intra-party division with a Senate vote on the Green New Deal expected next week. The progressive plan, backed to some extent by every Democratic presidential hopeful in the Senate, calls for transitioning the U.S. to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.
Speaking to reporters last week, members of the new New Democrat Coalition’s task force on climate change laid out their plans to introduce what they branded realistic climate change initiatives.
“The Green New Deal is aspirational, but what we plan to do is offer tangible achievable things, not just a resolution,” Luria said. “The entire plan of the task force is to find ways to attack this incrementally.”
The lawmakers argued it’s better to take the time to draft complete, heavily vetted legislation with a clear focus, than charge forward with a bill that might have holes.
Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) praised “the amount of energy” the Green New Deal has inspired but said “doing energy and environmental policy right really requires making sure you get the expertise of the folks who have been down in the trenches.”
It’s a timeline that can’t be rushed, he added, pointing to the Clean Air Act of 1963, which he said was created “without a full understanding” of the science, and an exercise he didn't want to see repeated.
Some of the Clean Air Act’s key components were added as amendments in 1970 and 1990.
“You still have to figure out how to actually get there, and you have to figure out how to get there with policies that work in the context of what we have,” he said of drafting a climate bill that takes into consideration federal policies and markets.
Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) echoed similar remarks Thursday while rolling out his nine-point framework for climate action, which includes setting targets for greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050 and ensuring clean energy industries continue to emerge in the U.S.
“Ten years have passed since we last controlled the House. We want to take the lessons learned, dynamics that have changed and want to make sure we are guided by certain principles,” Tonko, who’s chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on climate, told the Hill.
“It’s there for all political thinking and policy approaches so we are all on the same page going forward and bringing a bipartisan, bicameral discussion,” he said of his desire to reach across the aisle.
The principles, he said, are meant to “build momentum” and provide a good evaluation of any proposals to come, without offering a specific timeline. He pledged that lawmakers will put together a formal modeling on carbon pricing -- one approach to combating global warming -- “in the future, not too far down this year.”
Tonko said he views his panel, which will likely have the first stab at any climate bill, as the product development side, while the House Select Committee on Climate Crisis created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) this year will be the “messaging team.”
The select committee has yet to hold its first meeting. Pelosi appointed the panel members on Feb. 7.
Environmentalists and activists have grown frustrated by what they view as action at a glacial pace, especially when science shows glaciers are rapidly melting.
“I think that what we are being told by the science is that we have a deadline for reducing greenhouse gases by at least 50 percent over the next ten years. So we have to do everything we can, and that’s not going to be slow and steady -- that’s going to be large and ambitious,” said Mitch Jones, climate and energy program director at Food and Water Watch.
Environmental studies released over the past year have warned that carbon emissions will wrought irreversible damage if they aren’t reversed in the next 12 years. A United Nations study released last week warned that warming of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius is already “locked in” in the Arctic, even if all emissions were to end today.
“I think that the sense of urgency is somewhat lacking, but I feel that’s true of a lot of leadership on the Hill,” he added. “I just think that the mindset of the urgency of what is actually happening is slowly trickling up to Congress but hasn’t quite penetrated it.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/435231-dem-divisions-deepen-over-approach-to-climate-change
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EPA Adviser Draws Ire for Seeking Change to Air Quality Reviews
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Some scientists are alarmed the chairman of the EPA’s clean air science advisory committee wants to adopt an approach they say goes against widely accepted and vetted scientific practices.
Tony Cox Jr., who chairs the seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, told the EPA in March 7 comments that the committee “strongly recommends” that the Environmental Protection Agency assess the science behind exposure to fine particle pollution by adopting an approach known as “manipulative causation.”
Under this approach, the EPA would consider studies that demonstrate direct evidence of health benefits from reducing the pollutant in question.
The draft proposal mirrors the agency’s broader effort to overhaul how it evaluates direct benefits when mulling regulations.
Inconsistent With Clean Air Act?
The science advisers are holding a March 28 teleconference to discuss the EPA’s draft assessment of the science related to the health and ecological effects of fine particle pollution, which is a harmful pollutant linked to respiratory and cardiac illnesses.
Christopher Frey, a former chairman of this science panel, and some other scientists worry that EPA’s top science advisers will adopt the approach advocated by Cox, who is president of Denver-based risk analysis company Cox Associates Inc.
Cox’s “approach is inconsistent with the clear language of the Clean Air Act that EPA must consider not just ‘known’ but also ‘anticipated’ effects of air pollutants on human health and welfare,” Frey, an environmental engineering professor with North Carolina State University, told Bloomberg Environment in a March 20 email.
Cox said “manipulative causation” was just one approach the committee is considering, among many, which would help clarify whether exposure to a pollutant is actually causing adverse effects. But that aspect was not the main focus of his letter, he said.
“Thus, I believe that the concerns and criticisms raised are largely attacking a straw man,” he told Bloomberg Environment in a March 21 email.
The EPA did not respond to a request for comment on the criticism.
December 2020 Deadline
The science assessment is the first step of the EPA’s review of air quality standards for fine particles and ozone pollution, which it must complete by December 2020. The EPA wants help deciding whether to keep the standards, tighten them, or loosen them.
The EPA has already come under fire from several members of the science committee felt they lacked the depth of knowledge, diversity, and expertise to conduct the assessment.
Some also fear considering only direct benefits in the science plays into the EPA’s wider push to change how it reviews greenhouse gases and mercury from power plants. The agency is sifting through input on a proposal to overhaul the way it considers direct benefits in drafting rules.
Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists Center for Science and Democracy, and Francesca Dominici, biostatistics professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, raised red flags about this approach in a March 21 article in Science Magazine.
Fundamental Change?
Like Frey, they said the approach Cox is recommending, if adopted by EPA’s top science advisers, would “fundamentally change the EPA’s process for scientific assessment.”
Goldman and Dominici said the EPA assesses the health effects of an air pollutant by examining evidence from a wide range of scientific disciplines “rather than a single line of evidence or the use of a single statistical method.”
Cox proposed limiting the assessment to epidemiology, but in the past, the EPA also factored in studies in the fields of atmospheric chemistry and physics, ecology, toxicology, and statistics, they said.
“He is placing an unattainable standard by requiring that scientists show a direct health outcome resulting from a specific action taken to reduce a pollutant,” Goldman told Bloomberg Environment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-adviser-draws-ire-for-seeking-change-to-air-quality-reviews
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EPA Panel May Upend Scientific Basis for Regs — Researchers
Mar 21, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly
This story was updated at 5:25 p.m. EDT.
Recent developments on a key EPA advisory committee threaten to upend the agency's long-standing mechanisms for safeguarding the public from common air pollutants, two critics wrote in a newly published paper.
"Without a robust process to ensure that decision-makers have access to the best available science, policy decisions are unlikely to protect public health," Gretchen Goldman of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Harvard University researcher Francesca Dominici wrote in the paper, posted online this afternoon in the journal Science.
The paper's release came a week before a public teleconference by EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) that could be a crossroads in a legally required review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for airborne particulates.
In response to a draft EPA research roundup that concluded that the existing fine particulate standards may be too weak, the committee this month released a preliminary report that blasted the agency for purportedly failing to use widely accepted scientific methods to reach its conclusions, among other criticisms (Greenwire, March 8).
At the March 28 teleconference, the seven-member committee is scheduled to discuss the preliminary report as well as its next steps in the review, according to the agenda. Under a fast-track timetable imposed last year by then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, the review is supposed to wrap up by late next year.
But in today's paper, Goldman and Dominici say that CASAC Chairman Tony Cox, a Denver consultant, is seeking to adopt a narrower approach in establishing a connection between air pollution and health effects that places "a nearly unattainable burden of proof on the scientific community, and this is unlikely to protect those who need it most."
Cox, who previously did work for the American Petroleum Institute, has said he is committed to an impartial review of the standards, which were last tightened in 2012. In an email to E&E News after the article was posted, Cox said that it mischaracterizes his work. “I fear that this false narrative could distract from the questions of how to improve the use of sound, verifiable science" in the process of reviewing the EPA research roundup, he said.
Fine particulates, often labeled soot, are linked to an array of heart and lung problems. Dominici, a Harvard professor of biostatistics, has been part of a research team whose work has found evidence that EPA's current limits are not strong enough to adequately protect the elderly.
Goldman is research director at UCS's Center for Science and Democracy. The group has been a recurrent critic of the Trump administration's science policies; it is also a lead plaintiff in a pending lawsuit that challenges EPA's ban on agency grant recipients serving on the CASAC and other advisory panels. Both plan to speak at the teleconference during times set aside for public feedback.
In a ruiling released late this afternoon, a federal judge in New York threw out a separate legal challenge to the advisory committee policy brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the 21-page opinion, Senior U.S. District Judge William Pauley III of the Southern District of New York said the environmental group lacked the legal standing to bring the suit.
Last month, a federal judge for the District of Columbia threw out a third suit brought by Physicians for Social Responsibility and other plaintiffs on the grounds that Pruitt acted within his authority in setting the membership restrictions (E&E News PM, Feb. 12). The suit brought by the Union of Concerned Scientists in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts is the only one still awaiting a decision.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/03/21/stories/1060127897
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Carbon Tax Supporters Refining Details Amid Hazy Political Outlook
Mar 22, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan, Doug Obey and Dawn Reeves
Groups that back a carbon tax are continuing to refine elements of their preferred policy, even though the effort faces a hazy political outlook due to skepticism from progressives concerned the policy would be an insufficient response to climate change and continued opposition to broad carbon limits from most Republicans.
Even some carbon tax supporters are offering a dour political assessment. Prominent conservative economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and economic adviser to the late Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, recently predicted “there is no way” a carbon tax will be enacted within the next five years.
Yet climate politics are not set in stone, and the issue has received renewed energy in recent months. Capitol Hill Democrats -- and the growing number of contenders seeking to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020 -- are putting a major focus on climate policy through the Green New Deal (GND).
In addition, there are nascent stirrings from a small number of GOP lawmakers about embracing some sort of broad climate bill, including some who are sponsoring carbon tax legislation.
An official with the Climate Leadership Council (CLC) -- which has significant industry backing and support from big-name former Republican officials -- recently said the group would have as many as five Republican senators sponsoring its carbon tax bill that is slated to be introduced in the third quarter.
That will be a “jailbreak moment” for the GOP, according to CLC director Ted Halstead, because it would break with long-standing opposition to carbon controls by Trump and most elected Republicans.
Another source tells Inside EPA that there is “quite a bit of behind the scenes” discussion with Hill Republicans, including several lawmakers that quietly support CLC's plan, which would return all of the carbon tax proceeds to taxpayers through dividends while preempting many EPA climate rules.
“It's pretty easy to imagine a situation where you get a small group of moderate Republicans -- 10 to 12 in the Senate -- and 40 to 50 Democrats, to get you to 60 and pass something early in 2021,” the source notes.
At least one House Republican is publicly advocating for a carbon tax. Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) is urging his colleagues to embrace a carbon tax as a “reasonable” alternative to the GND.
That resolution -- which calls for ambitious efforts to shift to “net-zero” GHG emissions across the economy, alongside several progressive policies for jobs, education and health care -- “has given a window for Republicans to say, 'You know, this is really out there. Let's do the here and now, the things we can accomplish,'” he recently told reporters.
Ardent opponents of carbon controls are also recognizing the GND's political possibilities. “Just because it's ridiculous and preposterous doesn't mean it's not dangerous,” said Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, at a recent event hosted by House Republicans. The plan is “expanding the political spectrum of what's in the debate.”
The proposal moves the climate debate to the left and creates a “very large space” for Republicans to “start talking about how we need to have moderate solutions or reasonable solutions,” Ebell said, claiming that major legislative proposals on climate and a range of topics have been defeated when opponents did not offer an alternative.
Taking On Trump
Perhaps because of that persistent opposition from hard-line conservative groups -- and the lawmakers that align with their views -- Holtz-Eakin and others do not believe a carbon tax enjoys rosy prospects.
During a March 6 event hosted by Resources for the Future, a moderator noted increased optimism about enacting such a tax, to which Holtz-Eakin retorted: “I can fix that.”
He cited a number of hurdles, including that many GOP lawmakers are terrified of publicly differing with Trump, who opposes any carbon controls and publicly disputes climate science. “Nobody [in the Senate] wants to pop their heads up in this environment and have the president decide to take them on personally,” he said.
Yet, he also bemoaned the status of the debate on the right, given his view that a carbon tax is vastly superior to other alternatives to limit greenhouse gases.
“It is entirely baffling to me that good conservatives believe that price incentives are so powerful they can reshape the U.S. economy -- which is remarkably flexible and responds to these incentives and invents new products and looks so different than it did 200 years ago when it was an agricultural economy -- but a carbon tax will kill it,” said Holtz-Eakin, who is now president of the right-leaning American Action Forum.
He added: “That makes no sense whatsoever. That has to be called out and fixed, and then you get a better conversation on the right.”
Holtz-Eakin -- as head of a conservative think tank -- might feel little choice but to downplay the post-2020 prospects of carbon policy, given that not doing so would implicitly embrace the possibility of Trump's re-election defeat or a sharp policy reversal from a president who considers opposition to climate action to be a useful political tool to paint Democrats as out-of-touch elites.
His remarks at the event responded to greater, if guarded, optimism from long-time carbon tax supporter Gilbert Metcalf -- a former Obama Treasury Department official now at Tufts University.
“Obviously [a carbon tax] is not going to happen immediately. But we want to set the groundwork,” for a political opening for the policy, Metcalf said. “We are eventually going to get a federal policy, and I am reminded of what Winston Churchill said, 'Americans will always do the right thing after trying everything else.'”
'Hybrid' Approach
In that spirit, a group of environmental economists has been refining a case for a hybrid between a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade system in an effort to ease environmentalists' concern that a carbon pricing program would not cut enough GHGs, while also ensuring the plan does not impose too much regulatory complexity on industry.
The hybrid seeks to harmonize longstanding tensions between environmentalists and industry. Environmental groups generally support cap-and-trade because it offers relatively more certainty on GHG reductions, even though the cost for a given amount of emission cuts would vary widely.
Conversely, industry groups prefer a carbon tax because its price is more predictable and is assumed to be simpler to implement, even though the amount of GHG cuts it might achieve is less certain.
So, some economists are pushing to add an “emissions assurance mechanism” or a “tax adjustment mechanism” to a carbon tax would accelerate scheduled tax increases in order spur more GHG cuts if targets are being missed. It would act like a price floor included in many existing cap-and-trade programs.
The effort seeks to find “the sweet spot” between a cap and a tax, according to Joe Aldy, a Harvard University public policy professor. He noted that Swiss officials included such a mechanism in that country’s carbon tax, and they have had to raise the rate twice after failing to meet GHG reduction targets.
He argues such a provision would likely be necessary in any U.S. carbon tax to win support from environmentalists and their allies, because it is difficult to imagine sweeping carbon policy being enacted without support from both environmental groups and industry.
Last summer, the World Resources Institute explored options for “emissions target mechanisms” in a carbon tax to address the tension between price and emissions certainty. “Designing a policy that earns support from both [industry and environmental groups] will be a major political challenge,” the group acknowledged at the time.
Recent carbon tax bills have also included such provisions, though without many details. For example, 2018 legislation, S. 2638, from Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) would have set a $50-per-ton carbon tax in 2019, with the rate essentially doubling in any calendar year after GHG targets are not met. The bill has not been reintroduced in the new Congress.
Also, a bipartisan carbon tax bill reintroduced Jan. 24 in the House, H.R. 763, would set a $15-per-ton fee in 2019 that would increase annually by $10 per year. But if emissions from “covered fuels exceeded the emissions reduction target for the previous year,” the rate would increase by $15 rather than $10.
Sen. Chris van Hollen (D-MD) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), who last year introduced cap-and-dividend legislation, are slated to discuss the issue at a March 28 forum hosted by Resources for the Future.
https://insideepa.com/weekly-focus/carbon-tax-supporters-refining-details-amid-hazy-political-outlook
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IBM, Bank of America Trying to Avoid Climate Fight With Peers
Mar 21, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Climate-oriented firms should frame carbon-cutting and clean energy policies as better business opportunities for all, rather than attacking corporate opponents of climate regulation, several executives said March 21.
The strategy—outlined by executives from Bank of America, Mars Inc., IBM Corp., and Ingersoll Rand Inc.—offers a glimpse at how companies with long-term greenhouse gas cutting goals and clean-energy investment ambitions are working to build momentum for nationwide policies to address the issue.
But it also underscores the challenge they face as they confront corporate peers with a stake in maintaining fossil fuel resources, companies that are often vigorously fighting against policies to address climate change.
“I think it’s very difficult to expect there ever is going to be spending parity on policy engagement where on one side it’s directly hitting their business model and on the other side you have companies trying to do the right thing,” said Kevin Rabinovitch, Mars’ global vice president of sustainability, speaking at the Climate Leadership Conference in Baltimore.
Directly attacking companies such as fossil fuel producers isn’t going to work, Rabinovitch added. That’s in part because it cuts those producers out of conversations about solutions and makes it harder to find policies on which everyone in industry can agree.
Trade Group Mentality
That dynamic plays out clearly in some of the Washington-based trade groups with broad-based industry membership. Pushing those trade groups to advocate for climate policy can be a challenge, even if many of the member companies back aggressive climate action.
Companies can find strength in numbers in that regard, said Alex Liftman, global environmental executive at Bank of America.
Liftman and an executive from Citigroup Inc. are working with around 30 member companies in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce trying to prompt change in the trade group’s view and encourage more forward-looking climate policy advocacy, she said.
The Chamber’s official position is that climate change “is a serious challenge” and that “the best solutions are going to come from the private sector—or the private sector working together with government.” But Thomas Donohue, its president and CEO, said last month that the Green New Deal climate blueprint that many progressive Democrats champion “is a Trojan horse for socialism.”
Liftman acknowledged that institutions such as Bank of America don’t quite know yet how to bring together the companies pushing for broader climate solutions and those that would potentially be harmed by a carbon-constrained world.
Political Influence
Environmental groups, however, say even most companies with ambitious climate targets aren’t doing enough to push for nationwide policy.
And corporate metrics aren’t valuing climate policy advocacy as a critical element of climate leadership, EDF+Business, the Environmental Defense Fund’s corporate partnerships initiative, found in a March 20 report. EDF+Business analyzed eight widely cited corporate sustainability rankings and found just one that incorporated climate policy advocacy into its evaluation of companies.
“The most powerful tool any company can use is their political influence,” Victoria Mills, a managing director at EDF+Business and co-author of the report, told Bloomberg Environment.
Actions to cut their companywide emissions are important, but unless companies are really using political capital to solve the problem economy-wide and drive down emissions through national policy, they’re not making that substantial difference, Mills added.
“The runway for federal climate legislation is three to four years,” Mills said. “Companies that want to help shape policy need to come to the table now.”
Not Going Back
The key is to present opportunity to policymakers, said Scott Tew, executive director for Ingersoll Rand’s Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability. Companies have to show how next-generation, climate friendly products perform better than what’s in the market already, he added.
“I think there’s less benefit to companies to go out and attack others outside of their sector or where you have less credibility,” Tew said.
And forward-looking companies on climate change will continue to innovate and push toward their climate goals, irrespective of policy changes, said Edan Dionne, vice president of corporate environmental affairs at IBM.
“Even if a regulation gets loosened up, we’re not going to go back and design less efficient” products, Dionne 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/ibm-bank-of-america-trying-to-avoid-climate-fight-with-peers
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Climate Deal Seen as Antidote to Chinese Dumping
Mar 22, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
The U.S. refrigerants industry thinks a global deal that is usually billed as a response to climate change could stop Chinese companies from illegally dumping chemicals on the U.S. market.
The Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission determined three years ago that a group of Chinese companies routinely sold hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) at a loss in the United States to undercut their American competitors. The chemicals are used in air conditioning and refrigeration.
But if the United States ratifies the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, or enacts policy to phase down the use of HFCs, the ability of Chinese companies to engage in these unfair trade practices would disappear. It would also reward U.S. companies that have already developed cleaner alternatives.
"An orderly HFC phasedown in the United States would restrict the use of those refrigerants, making the U.S. market unfavorable for dumping," said Francis Dietz, vice president of public affairs at the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute.
After Commerce and ITC sided with U.S. companies in 2016 and 2017, they slapped import levies on Chinese firms. But they proved adept at circumventing the tariffs by blending their chemicals in the United States or passing them off as imports from third countries, like Jamaica.
So U.S. companies continue to feel the effects of unfair HFC trade practices by Chinese competitors, representatives say. But Kigali, which was agreed to in 2016 as a way to end the global use of a powerful class of climate change contributors, could phase out HFCs and make that dumping stop, supporters say.
"If we don't use as much, we don't need as much," said Dietz.
As the phasedown continues, fewer HFCs could be used in cooling and refrigeration products, eliminating demand for cheap chemicals from companies like Huantai Dongyue International Trade Co. Ltd. or T.T. International Co. Ltd. Both of them were named in the 2016 trade petition.
Meanwhile, alternatives developed and patented by companies like Chemours Co. or Honeywell International Inc., both U.S. manufacturers, could get a boost that extends beyond the U.S. market. China currently manufactures 70 percent of the world's air conditioning products and is a major exporter to the developing world. Kigali could position U.S. chemical companies to compete, its supporters say.
Still, despite President Trump's insistence on eliminating trade imbalances with China, he has not asked the Senate to ratify Kigali. Industry is anxious for him to do so.
"The longer we wait to signal that policy to be pursued in the United States, the tougher it gets to make the investment decisions, to make the investment in the United States," Kevin Fay, executive director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, said in a recent interview.
Whether or not to ask the Senate to approve Kigali is the subject of ongoing interagency discussions presided over by White House staff. Participants from the State and Commerce departments are believed to have been on board for months, but both EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Bill Wehrum, the agency's air chief who is participating in meetings, are said to be skeptical.
The problem is Kigali's pedigree as a climate agreement.
HFCs are thousands of times as heat-forcing as carbon dioxide, and while the Montreal Protocol boosted their use because they didn't contribute to ozone depletion, the Kigali Amendment is an effort to mitigate the unintended consequence of that decision. Scientists say Kigali would reduce global warming by a half-degree Celsius by the end of this century, giving the Paris climate agreement time to ramp up.
But industry advocates who highlighted that benefit during the Obama administration are now pretending it doesn't exist, because addressing climate change is unpersuasive to this administration. Instead, they're focusing on pro-trade arguments.
Among the proponents is Let America Lead, a coalition of industry and conservative groups pushing Trump to send Kigali to the Senate for ratification.
In a January op-ed circulated by the group, Kevin St. James, a firefighter and county commissioner from New Hampshire, writes in his local newspaper, the Portsmouth Herald, that Kigali would keep Americans safe from "cheap, inferior and often harmful products that come out of China."
"Time and again we have heard President Trump call out China's unfair trading practices, and I stand with him," he wrote.
Let America Lead founder and former Trump energy adviser George David Banks, who advocated for Kigali in the White House, took a similar stance in an interview on Fox Business last week. Asked by Stuart Varney about the role manufacturing would play in the president's fiscal 2020 budget projections of 3 percent economic growth, he immediately pivoted to Kigali.
"There's also an international agreement out there that, believe it or not, is an America-first agreement that would lock in an American manufacturing agreement for years to come," said Banks, going on to speak in glowing terms about the amendment's job-creating properties and his regret that it wasn't named after Pittsburgh or Columbus, Ohio, instead of the Rwandan capital.
He never mentioned the environment, leaving Varney to wonder what this "refrigerants" agreement was and whether it had the bipartisan backing to pass the Senate.
"If the president understands the commercial benefits of this, he'll back it, he'll send it to the Senate," said Banks. "The Senate will ratify it."
Fay, from the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, said Wehrum seemed cautious about involving the United States in a climate deal that might prove to be too much like the Paris Agreement.
"We've had good meetings with Bill, but he's expressed concern about greenhouse gas regulations," said Fay. "One of his missions has been dealing with moving away from that and making it clear that the administration is not regulating greenhouse gases."
Meanwhile, U.S. industry is united on Kigali, even when it isn't in agreement about HFC regulations. Mexichem and Arkema, the two refrigerant manufacturers leading a lawsuit against EPA Clean Air Act rules to do away with specific HFCs, support Kigali and the anti-Chinese dumping measures.
The Kigali Amendment took effect on Jan. 1 without U.S. participation. And unlike the Paris Agreement, the Montreal Protocol's trade implications are fairly straightforward — they amount to a worldwide ban on the trade of HFCs by 2033.
"The irony of this is that the trade provision was developed in the Montreal Protocol in the 1980s as a measure supported by the United States to leverage participation by everyone," said David Doniger, senior strategic director for climate change at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "And it would be ironic if the United States were to stay out of it and ultimately become on the wrong end of a trade sanction."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/03/22/stories/1060127915
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