Preview Newsletter
ACC Mar 5
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(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Update Crucial for U.S. to Maintain Global Competitiveness, DuPont Official Says
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) has introduced a bill that would negate the Environmental Protection Agency's January 2011 “veto” of a dredge-and-fill permit for the Spruce No. 1 coal mine in West Virginia. Introduced March 2, the bill (H.R. 1203) would bar the EPA from altering or vetoing a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit after the U.S.... -
(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Reform Push For Industry-Led Risk Assessments Faces Opposition
Mar 4, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
A former top Bush White House official is suggesting lawmakers crafting Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation include provisions giving industry power to develop chemical risk assessments that EPA would use as the basis for regulation, but Democrats and environmentalists say they would oppose any such plan. -
(ACC Mentioned) BPA Is Fine, If You Ignore Most Studies About It
Mar 4, 2015 | Newsweek
By Douglas Main
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is either a harmless chemical that’s great for making plastic or one of modern society’s more dangerous problems. Depends whom you ask. BPA is in many types of plastics and the epoxy resins that line most aluminum cans, as well as thermal papers like receipts. It is an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen... -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Industry Group Launches Defense Of BPA
Mar 5, 2015 | Manufacturing Business Technology
By Andy Szal
The American Chemistry Council announced an ad campaign highlighting recent evaluations of bisphenol A as "safe." The ads—running in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and on consumer, news and health websites—urge readers to "listen to the science" on BPA, a synthetic compound found in many plastics and resins. -
(ACC Mentioned) Bourne Recycling: Banning Plastic Bags Has Many Benefits
Mar 4, 2015 | CapeNews
There is a growing movement for towns to ban the use of certain single-use plastic bags. The concern arises from the growing impact on land and water, such as the injury or death of fish and animals, pollution, storm drain clogging, the burden on waste collection, and the use of millions of barrels of fossil fuel for their manufacture. -
(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Recycling Update Magazine
Mar 4, 2015 | Resource Recycling
The group, which held the annual meeting last week following the Plastics Recycling Conference, reported record membership and revenues topping $1 million in 2014. Eight new members were also welcomed at the Dallas meeting. Steve Alexander, APR’s executive director, laid out the group’s key challenges... -
House Bill Would Ban Sale, Distribution Of Microbeads in Personal Care Products
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Bipartisan legislation introduced March 4 in the House would ban the sale or distribution of personal care products—such as exfoliants, soap and toothpaste—that contain synthetic plastic microbeads, starting Jan. 1, 2018. The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 was jointly introduced by Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman... -
Senator Seeks Probes of Chinese Flooring, Draws Parallel to Defective Drywall ‘Debacle'
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
Federal investigations should be conducted into the safety of laminated wood flooring produced in China, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) urged in a letter to the chiefs of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Trade Commission. -
Report Spurs Senate Request for Probe of Flooring Retailer
Mar 4, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
A Senate Democrat requested an investigation today into levels of formaldehyde in imported laminate boards sold by a major retailer, comparing the matter to notorious cases of Chinese-made drywall that was linked to health problems. CBS News' "60 Minutes" reported last week on tests showing that laminate flooring sold ... -
EPA's Design for Environment Program Renamed Safer Choice, Gets New Logo
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
The Environmental Protection Agency's Design for the Environment program is getting a new name—Safer Choice—and a new logo, the agency announced. The new logo will go on the labels of consumer products that contain only chemicals that the EPA has reviewed and that meet high environmental or human health standards. -
EPA Overhauls Household Chemical Label System
Mar 4, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is overhauling its voluntary labeling system for designating that household cleaners and contain environmentally safe ingredients. The “Safer Choice” system is the new iteration of its “Design for the Environment” labels, meant to certify products that are safe for the environment, pets... -
US EPA Extends Comment Period on 13 Snurs
Mar 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has extended the comment period on its proposed new use rules (Snurs) for 13 chemicals to 23 April. They were published in the Federal Register in January (CW 7 January 2015). The 45-day extension was granted following requests from companies for more time to research and submit more detailed comments. -
EU Chemicals Agency Seeks Input On Two ‘Substances of Very High Concern'
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is calling for comments through April 16 on the listing under the European Union's REACH regulation of two chemicals as “substances of very high concern” (SVHCs), a designation that ultimately could lead to use of the substances being prohibited. -
Companies in Europe Advised to Monitor REACH Substance Evaluation Appeals
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
A transition has started in the type of case heard by the Board of Appeal of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which oversees the European Union's REACH law, according to speakers during a webinar hosted by the Brussels office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies Hearing
Mar 5, 2015 | Insurance News Net
Good morning, Chairman Ratcliffe, Ranking Member Richmond, and other distinguished members of the committee. My name is Matthew Eggers, and I am a senior director of the U.S. Chamber's National Security and Emergency Preparedness Department. On behalf of the Chamber, I welcome the opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee... -
CSB Chairman Weathers Bipartisan Assault, Demands for Resignation at House Hearing
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Iafolla
Democratic lawmakers joined the Republican chorus calling for the immediate resignation of Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso during a bruising congressional oversight hearing March 4. Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform bashed Moure-Eraso for dysfunctional ... -
Oversight Committee Calls on Head of Safety Agency to Resign
Mar 4, 2015 | National Journal
By Jason Plautz
In no uncertain terms, Republicans and Democrats alike called on the head of a troubled government safety agency to step down amid charges that he used personal email for official business and retaliated against employees. Members of the House Oversight Committee slammed the management practices of Rafael Moure-Eraso, the ... -
Interior to Decide ‘Soon' on Extensions For Shell Drilling Leases in Offshore Arctic
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Royal Dutch Shell Plc should learn soon whether it will get extensions for its leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska's north coast, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said March 4. Litigation, slow regulatory procedures and short Arctic drilling seasons led the company to submit requests in July to the Interior Department to... -
FERC OKs Building of Parts of Dominion Cove LNG Project, Algonquin Transmission Project
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nushin Huq
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Dominion Cove LNG LP's request to proceed with construction of the outside battery limit areas at its liquefied natural gas terminal in Calvert County, Md., the commission said in an order issued March 4 (Docket No. CP13-113-000). -
Republicans Eye Attaching Keystone XL Bill To Highway Funding Measure, Hoeven Says
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Senate Republicans are considering attaching legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to a long-term transportation funding bill and other must-pass measures, since the chamber failed to override President Barack Obama's veto of the measure, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters following the vote. -
Eight Democrats Who Backed The Keystone Veto Override
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
The eight Senate Democrats who voted with every Republican to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline bill were: Sens. Michael Bennet, Heidi Heitkamp, Tom Carper, Bob Casey, Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester and Mark Warner. Sen. Joe Donnelly, a Democrat who supports the pipeline, missed the vote. -
Senate Fails to Override Keystone Veto
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor
Senate Republicans tried in vain Wednesday to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline bill, leaving the GOP with few immediate prospects for green-lighting a project whose fate the White House may soon decide on its own. The vote — held a day ahead of schedule because of an impending snowstorm — was 62-37... -
Former Interior Secretary Salazar Talks Obama Admin Action on Power Plan, Oil and Gas Development
Mar 5, 2015 | E&E Daily News
How will the evolution of the utility industry converge with Clean Power Plan targets and natural gas policy? During today's OnPoint, former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar discusses the challenges facing U.S. EPA as it crafts its final Clean Power Plan rule and the impact the plan could have on grid reliability. Salazar, now a partner at WilmerHale... -
McConnell Urges States Not to Comply With EPA Carbon Standards for Power Plants
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Anthony Adragna
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged states not to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, elevating a tactic that has been debated recently among opponents of the proposed rule. States should “hold back” plans for complying with the rule, which would set carbon dioxide emissions limits... -
McConnell Urges States to Defy U.S. Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas
Mar 4, 2015 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, is urging governors to defy President Obama by refusing to implement the administration’s global warming regulations. In an op-ed article published Wednesday in The Lexington Herald-Leader with the headline, “States should reject Obama mandate for clean-power regulations,”... -
Ky. Utility Praises State's Emerging Clean Power Plan Strategy
Mar 4, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
Kentucky's top electric utility has embraced state regulators' idea of claiming credit for coal plant closures that are already in the works as a means of complying with U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan. Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities spokeswoman Liz Pratt said the state's compliance strategy must take full advantage of... -
Bill to Speed Energy, Infrastructure Permits Suffers Temporary Setback in Senate Panel
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
A bill aimed at streamlining and expediting environmental permitting for major energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing projects suffered what is likely only a temporary setback March 4, when a Senate panel opted to postpone a vote on the measure due to last-minute Obama administration objections. -
Shaheen Expects To Reintroduce Efficiency Bill In Coming Weeks
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said this afternoon that she hopes to reintroduce her long-stalled energy efficiency legislation in "the next couple weeks." The bill, which she is authoring with Sen. Rob Portman, has been mired in procedural delays for years. Shaheen said she hasn't yet talked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell... -
Energy Efficiency Bill Introduction in Coming Weeks
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Afternoon Energy
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said this afternoon that she hopes to reintroduce her long-stalled energy efficiency legislation in "the next couple weeks." The bill, which she is authoring with Sen. Rob Portman, has been mired in procedural delays for years. Shaheen said she hasn't yet talked to McConnell about bringing... -
The EPA’s Not-So-Green Emissions Plan
Mar 4, 2015 | The Washington Post
The Environmental Protection Agency is mandating cuts in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. But dozens of environmental scientists from Princeton to Baton Rouge to Berkeley warned last month that the way the agency is writing the rules threatens to sharply increase forest clearing, undermining the EPA effort. -
Senate Republicans' Bills Aim To Overhaul Key EPA Air, Climate Programs
Mar 4, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Anthony Lacey
Senate Republicans are pushing three bills aimed at significantly overhauling key EPA air quality and climate change programs, including forcing the agency to delay by several years its proposed revision to the ozone air standard and to revise its regulations in a bid to improve and accelerate its “exceptional events” air policy. -
Murkowski, King Form New Senate Caucus To Focus on Issues Related to the Arctic
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrea Vittorio
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Angus King (I-Maine) are forming a new Senate caucus focused on Arctic issues. Its aim is to demonstrate why the Arctic matters to all 50 states, not just Alaska, and it will focus on a range of topics, including national security, the environment, trade and maritime affairs. -
Alaska Senator Launches Arctic Caucus
Mar 4, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action
By Jordain Carney
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Wednesday that senators were launching an Arctic caucus, which will focus on helping build U.S. leadership in the region. The Alaska Republican and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) are forming the caucus, which will include discussions on a range of issues including defense, energy, environment and trade. -
Sen. Flake Reintroduces Bill to Delay Ozone Rule
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) reintroduced legislation (S. 640) that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from revising the national ambient air quality standards for ozone until Feb. 1, 2018. The EPA is under a court-ordered deadline of Oct. 1 to issue its final decision (RIN 2060-AP38) on whether to revise or retain the current standard ... -
Alaska Companies Seek High Court Review Of Permit Shield Ruling for Coal Discharges
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lars-Eric Hedberg
An Alaska energy company and state-owned railroad asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments on whether pieces of coal that fall off a conveyer belt into Resurrection Bay are covered by a Clean Water Act general discharge permit shield (Aurora Energy Servs., LLC v. Alaska Cmty. Action on Toxics, U.S., No. 14-1060, 3/2/15). -
Publication of Coal Ash Rule Not Expected Until Late March or Early April, EPA Says
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Formal issuance of the nation's first-ever standards for the disposal and management of coal ash won't occur until late March or early April, Environmental Protection Agency staff said during a March 4 webinar. Publication of the final rule (RIN 2050-AE81) in the Federal Register is important because it starts the clock for legal ... -
Final Briefs Filed In Climate Case
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Erica Martinson
EPA and states filed their final briefs today in a lawsuit over the agency’s proposed greenhouse gas rule for existing power plants. EPA argued in its brief that the court should reject outright efforts to undermine a 2010 settlement agreement with environmentalists where the agency agreed to promulgate greenhouse gas rules. -
New Climate Justice Legal Framework Is Imperative, EPA Official, Others Say
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Action is urgently needed to address climate change and its impacts on vulnerable populations and communities, attorneys and former and current environment officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Bank said March 4. Governments, businesses and environmental professionals are taking steps to combat ... -
Committee Passes Crude-by-Rail Response Bill
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a bill (S. 546)March 4 aimed at bolstering emergency response efforts to crude-by-rail transport and other incidents. The committee passed it by voice vote, according to a committee spokeswoman. The Railroad Emergency Services Preparedness, Operational Needs... -
Phillips 66 Gas Recovery Project a Cover For Crude-by-Rail Plan, Group Says in Suit
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
A propane and butane recovery project a the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo, Calif., is really part of a broader effort to retool the company's two California facilities to handle heavy crude oil shipped in by rail, an environmental group charged in a challenge to the project approval (Communities for a Better Env't v. Contra Costa Cnty., Cal. Sup. Ct... -
Schumer Calls on Regulators to 'Stabilize' Bakken Crude
Mar 5, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Blake Sobczak
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pushing federal regulators to make Bakken crude less volatile following a spate of oil train disasters. "The inherent dangers in the shipment of unstable crude oil have become only too clear in recent years," Schumer said yesterday in a letter addressed to the Departments of Transportation and Energy... -
Bipartisan Bill Grants Reprieve on Positive Train Control Implementation
Mar 5, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sean Reilly
Railroads would get five more years to fully implement the anti-crash technology known as positive train control under bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday. Under the 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act, the deadline is the end of this year. S. 650, sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), would push that date back to December 2020.
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Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) has introduced a bill that would negate the Environmental Protection Agency's January 2011 “veto” of a dredge-and-fill permit for the Spruce No. 1 coal mine in West Virginia.
Introduced March 2, the bill (H.R. 1203) would bar the EPA from altering or vetoing a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has issued the permit. The corps runs the Section 404 permit program, and the EPA has oversight authority.
“This action creates uncertainty for any business that needs a permit for its operations—not just coal but manufacturing, construction, agriculture, and many others,” McKinley said regarding the EPA's authority to alter permits after the corps has issued them. “I will continue to fight this gross abuse of power and return certainty to permitting so businesses can create jobs.”
McKinley's bill is the third introduced this session that would limit the EPA's authority to restrict or alter permits for disposal sites in wetlands, streams and other water for dredged or fill material (31 DEN A-2, 2/17/15).
Previous Vetoes Targeted
The new bill, however, also would apply retroactively to permits that were altered after the corps had issued them, including the Spruce mine in Logan County, W.Va. The EPA issued restrictions in January 2011 for certain Spruce mine disposal sites that the corps had approved in January 2007, when it issued the mine's permit.
The EPA restrictions on the Spruce mine are being challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appellant brief is due April 13 (Mingo Logan Coal Co. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., Docket No. 14-5305, 12/9/14; 230 DEN A-1, 12/1/14).
McKinley's bill has been referred to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio), the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, has said he will hold a hearing on his own bill (H.R. 896) that also aims to limit this EPA authority, although it has not been formally announced or scheduled (32 DEN A-1, 2/18/15).
Hearing Unclear
In response to Bloomberg BNA's message asking whether McKinley's bill would also be taken up at that hearing, Gibbs said, “Rep. McKinley and I share the same concerns regarding the EPA and their enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Last Congress, I was a cosponsor of his preemptive veto bill and I introduced a bill focusing on the retroactive veto threat and discussed aspects of his legislation in a hearing in my subcommittee. The enforcement of the Clean Water Act remains a top priority of mine as the Committee considers the subcommittee's hearing schedule and topics.”
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(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Reform Push For Industry-Led Risk Assessments Faces Opposition
Mar 4, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
A former top Bush White House official is suggesting lawmakers crafting Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation include provisions giving industry power to develop chemical risk assessments that EPA would use as the basis for regulation, but Democrats and environmentalists say they would oppose any such plan.
In his remarks at the annual GlobalChem conference here March 3, John Graham, the former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during George W. Bush's administration, urged a two-part approach for dealing with existing chemicals on the market, drawing ideas from Canadian and European methods of regulation as well as U.S. approaches for regulating pesticides and pharmaceuticals.
First, he recommended that any TSCA reform legislation include a “Canadian style” prioritization approach, where EPA would determine which chemicals are high or low priorities for assessment using existing data and computer modeling.
Second, Graham recommended that TSCA reform include “European-style data collection, but on hundreds, not thousands of chemicals. Industry [should be] responsible for generating data and risk assessments, not the government.” Graham explained that he recommends this approach because “first, I believe that industry, not government, is in a better position to gather information on [chemicals'] use and exposure. Second, [I] have serious doubts that if the [risk assessment] burden were placed on EPA, it will ever get done.”
Further, Graham argued that there is precedent for such an approach on other products that the federal government regulates. “Industry wants to sell these chemicals, it should be their burden to prove [their safety]. We do it with pharmaceuticals, we do it with pesticides, and we should do it with industrial chemicals.”
Graham said his recommendations come from a study that he, now dean of Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and a doctoral student performed, with funding from the American Chemistry Council (ACC). The two reviewed other countries' chemical management systems, including interviewing stakeholders. They focused their efforts on the European Union's Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) law and Canada's chemical management system, ultimately deciding to recommend a hybrid of the two approaches.
“There are lessons that we can learn from other countries, like Canada and Europe,” Graham said. “We should not be allergic to the idea.”
Industry's Support
Graham's recommendations were welcomed by GlobalChem hosts, ACC and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA), which represents smaller specialty and batch chemical companies. “I think John Graham's idea makes a lot of sense,” said Larry Sloan, president of SOCMA, during a meeting with reporters March 3.
ACC posted a blog on its website March 2 previewing Graham's remarks, and highlighting his recommendations for TSCA reform. In the blog, Graham writes that REACH “in its entirety” is not a good model for the United States, but that “it does have two innovations that, if adapted wisely, could help move U.S. policy forward. One places the scientific burden of risk assessment on industry, where it belongs. And one authorizes -- and compels -- companies and users to collaborate on risk assessment,” the blog says.
But the idea that industry, not EPA, would draft the risk assessments of existing industrial chemicals was a non-starter for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Richard Denison, a lead senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund.
Boxer, the ranking member on the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, told Inside EPA after a March 4 hearing on EPA's fiscal year 2016 budget request that she would oppose a measure allowing industry to conduct its own risk assessments. “I don't believe in the fox guarding the hen house,” she said.
Similarly, Denison, in response to a question from Inside EPA, said March 3, “We could never support an approach that would have the potential to have EPA rubber-stamping industry-written assessments. That approach would have zero credibility in the U.S.”
Graham acknowledged that his idea may have trouble winning over members of Congress. During his remarks he discussed the prospects for his proposal in pending TSCA reform re-writes. “I believe that Congress has looked at the Canadian prioritization system.” But he added that he believes Congress to be “allergic” to the European REACH law. Its no data, no market approach for every industrial chemical has been widely reviled by American industry.
“My intent is to lower expectations” on TSCA reform action, Graham said. “We are talking about the U.S. Congress. . . . Congress is hard to get focused, especially on technical matters where the devil is in the details.”
TSCA Reform
Still, other GlobalChem speakers expressed more optimism about TSCA reform prospects. Mark Duvall, a principal with the law firm Beveridge & Diamond, suggested that there is interest in key players in both chambers, including Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the new chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee, and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the new ranking member of the Energy & Commerce Committee. Inhofe and Pallone's positions are shifts from the last Congress, when Democrats controlled the Senate and the more progressive, now-retired Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) was ranking member.
Duvall also suggested that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)'s pursuit of the Louisiana governor's seat might accelerate action in the Senate. Vitter, a key player who introduced in 2013 a TSCA reform bill co-sponsored by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), is facing an October primary and will likely not be engaged in the Senate after the summer, Duvall said. “I expect a lot of activity [soon] in the Senate,” he added. And SOCMA's Sloan suggested that Congress may be further inspired to tackle TSCA reform if pending trade negotiations stall because of other countries' concerns over the adequacy of the existing TSCA law. “If [the existing] TSCA is viewed as weakened [compared to other countries' chemical management laws], how does that affect our leverage in trade agreements?” Sloan asked, noting that the Obama administration is trying to negotiate important agreements in Europe and Asia. “We've got to see some movement on TSCA [reform] because that will impact our trade agreements.”
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(ACC Mentioned) BPA Is Fine, If You Ignore Most Studies About It
Mar 4, 2015 | Newsweek
By Douglas Main
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is either a harmless chemical that’s great for making plastic or one of modern society’s more dangerous problems. Depends whom you ask.
BPA is in many types of plastics and the epoxy resins that line most aluminum cans, as well as thermal papers like receipts. It is an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen, a hormone especially important in sexual development, and the fact that it’s all over the place worries many people. Newsweek spoke with about 20 scientists, leaders in the field of BPA research, and the majority say it is likely (though not certain) that the chemical plays a role in a litany of health concerns: obesity, diabetes, problems with fertility and reproductive organs, susceptibility to various cancers and cognitive/behavioral deficits like ADHD.
“There's too much data consistent across studies…time and time again…to ignore it and suggest BPA has no effect on humans,” says Gail Prins, a physiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
But the plastic industry, researchers it funds and, most important, many regulatory agencies—including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)—say BPA is safe for humans at the levels people are exposed to.
“BPA used in food packaging does not present a risk to consumer health,” says FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman. Kathryn St. John, with the industry group American Chemistry Council, says BPA is safe and refers to statements made by the FDA and EFSA to back her up. And John Rost, chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance, states emphatically that BPA is nothing to worry about, adding, “I feed it to my five children every day.”
Fetal Risks
BPA was first synthesized in 1891 by a Russian chemist and investigated for use as an artificial estrogen in the 1930s, when it was found to mimic the effects of that hormone on the human body. Two decades later, manufacturers began to use it to make plastics, specifically polycarbonate, and its estrogenic properties were mostly ignored.
BPA is relatively cheap to produce and very effective for making structurally sound plastics, producing strong and often transparent products that resist falling apart when heated or cooled. And it’s great at keeping cans from corroding. Around 75 percent of cans in North America are lined with BPA, says Rost. And, thanks largely to BPA resins, there hasn’t been a single case of fatal food-borne illness traced directly to North American cans in 37 years, because the substance prevents metal corrosion and breakages, he says.
The use of BPA has continued to grow in the past few decades. As of 2012, 10 billion pounds of the material were produced worldwide, with a total estimated 2013 market value of more than $13 billion. And the market is expected to expand by about 5 percent annually in the near future. Every day, the manufacture and sale of BPA brings in tens of millions of dollars.
But scientists suggest that might be offset by a large, hidden cost: its impact on human health. To date, there have been around 1,000 animal studies on BPA, and the vast majority show that it causes or is linked to many health problems, from alterations in fertility to increased risk for cancers and cardiovascular problems to impaired brain development, says Frederick vom Saal, a longtime researcher of the product at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
There have only been animal studies because it would be unethical to give extremely high doses to humans, says Ana Soto, an endocrinologist at Tufts University. While testing on animals can be a good starting place to understanding how a chemical might affect human bodies, such tests aren’t conclusive. For that reason, scientists have conducted about 100 human epidemiological studies to look at the patterns of health and disease in real-life settings. These too show a correlation between exposure to BPA and the aforementioned ailments.
Scientists are particularly worried about exposure to the developing fetus and infants. When the fetal brain is first developing, it is most vulnerable to endocrine disruptors like BPA, research has shown. And animal studies have suggested early exposure to BPA has a significant impact on the brain and other organs. Some epidemiological research does too. Brown University epidemiologist Joseph Braun, for example, has shown a link between early childhood exposure to BPA and later behavioral problems.
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It’s in Your Blood
Several dozen studies in the past five years or so have found average human blood serum levels of BPA in the low range, around 1 part per billion (ppb). Many of the negative health effects in animal studies have been shown to occur at these levels, says Laura Vandenberg, who researches endocrine disruptors at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. But the established methods for testing the toxicity of substances—the degree to which they can harm the human body—assume that the toxic impact is more or less proportional to the amount ingested. Endocrine disruptors like BPA, which act like hormones, don’t “play by the rules,” says Patricia Hunt, a geneticist at Washington State University. Hormones can have very different effects at low and high levels. An estrogenic chemical can induce cell growth at low levels but inhibit it at high concentrations, for example. Regulatory agencies have begun to recognize this but still “keep relying on standard toxicology tests,” Hunt says.
The FDA contends the studies that show exposure in the low ppb range must be outliers, the result of what the FDA’s Eisenman calls the “well-known problem of contamination” that occurs during the collection of blood samples. BPA is also found in dust, and scientists all agree that it’s very hard to avoid contamination when testing for this chemical. But it’s not impossible. Many researchers say a handful of labs have established protocols to control for contamination. One 2014 round-robin study (where blood with known concentrations of BPA was tested at different institutions) found that three labs accurately identified and measured samples with very low levels of BPA, while one lab failed, Vandenberg says. The paper also established contamination-avoiding guidelines labs can and now do follow, she adds.
And as reported in late 2014 by vom Saal and a colleague in Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, nine studies that employed contamination-avoiding methods (such as testing background levels of the chemical) found human BPA serum levels close to or above 1 ppb.
Justin Teeguarden, a researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, published a study last month investigating the impact of consuming soup containing six times the FDA’s acceptable daily intake (which is five micrograms per kilogram of body weight, according to Eisenman). The 10 men tested ended up with blood concentrations of BPA of about 0.1 ppb, 10 times lower than levels found in vom Saal’s review. Teeguarden says the vast majority of people probably have BPA blood levels much lower than this, since these subjects were exposed to thousands of times “more BPA than most are exposed to.”
But Teeguarden’s characterization of standard exposure might be missing a key element: non-food sources. BPA can get into the bloodstream from handling receipts, for example. And when the chemical gets into the body this way, says vom Saal, it bypasses the liver, which normally renders harmless a good amount of ingested BPA. This leads to significant levels of the chemical in the blood stream, a 2014 JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association study showed. Vom Saal argues that the FDA, EFSA and other regulatory agencies have not yet addressed—or even recognized—how much these sources of BPA exposure are contributing to human blood concentrations.
Teeguarden disagrees, though, taking the same basic position as the FDA: The blood levels reported by vom Saal and the others are all wrong, due to contamination. But it is worth mentioning that Teeguarden’s study was funded by the American Chemistry Council—a trade group that represents companies that manufacture chemicals like BPA. The council has funded other studies on BPA, and they’ve all concluded that the chemical has no harmful effects. One 2006 analysis by vom Saal and Wade Welshons showed that 11 out of 11 industry-funded studies found BPA had no significant action, while 109 of 119 studies that had no industry funding (92 percent) did find effects of BPA.
“It’s puzzling when you see that kind of disparity—it doesn’t make sense from a scientific perspective,” says Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Texas at Austin and editor-in-chief of the journal Endocrinology. Dr. Csaba Leranth, a Yale School of Medicine physician and scientist whose studies have shown that BPA reduces the number of synapses (brain cell connections) in monkey brains, is more direct: “Studies funded by industry are not reliable.”
In June 2014, the FDA reiterated that BPA is safe in the way it is currently used by plastics manufacturers. But the agency also dismissed as irrelevant the vast majority of the BPA safety studies its own scientists reviewed in preparation for that official position statement. According to the FDA, for example, all of the 48 epidemiological studies reviewed had “no utility” for the agency’s risk assessment, the formal process it undertakes to decide if a chemical is safe for human health or not.
In some cases, the reviewers’ notes don’t seem to match up with the FDA’s sweeping assertion that there’s nothing to see here. For example, the reviewers wrote of one 2013 study, “These data support a plausible relationship between urinary BPA levels and obesity.” They say that another paper, regarding hyperactivity, “should be considered as part of the growing body of work assessing relationships between BPA exposure and behavior.” But none of these seemingly concerning links are mentioned in the conclusion that BPA is safe.
“I think there’s a strong influence among the chemical industries and their lobbyists—they have the money and time,” Gore says, adding that researchers have very little of both. In 2013, for example, the American Chemistry Council spent more than $11 million on lobbying expenses, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Industry groups have also funded, and in some cases written up, research done by governmental scientists. One 2008 investigation, by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, found that “a government report claiming that bisphenol-A is safe was written largely by the plastics industry and others with a financial stake in the controversial chemical.”
The Chemical Whack-a-Mole Game
Despite the FDA’s continued support of BPA, the chemical is already being replaced on the market due to consumer concerns—but with substances such as bisphenol-S that behave similarly, and may even be worse in some ways. This often happens when companies find that a substance they use may be harmful or is shunned by consumers, and they need to find a publicly acceptable replacement, something Braun calls the “chemical whack-a-mole game.”
There are numerous examples where industry has tried to sow doubt to keep products on the market when there is evidence to reasonably conclude they might not be safe, says Dr. Philippe Grandjean, a health researcher and physician at Harvard. Lobbying by chemical companies allowed lead to be used in gasoline for decades longer than necessary, and this needlessly damaged the developing brains of thousands of children, he says.
The case is not as clear-cut with BPA, because of inconsistencies and uncertainty in the data, says Heather Patisaul, an endocrinologist and developmental biologist at North Carolina State University. “We don’t really understand how these things affect us at low levels, and what that means over a lifetime,” she adds.
But most scientists polled think there’s enough “writing on the wall,” as vom Saal puts it, to enact more stringent regulations, at least while BPA is being studied more thoroughly. “You have to act or not,” says Soto, despite the uncertainties. “I think we have plenty of evidence, if we are responsible, to act.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Industry Group Launches Defense Of BPA
Mar 5, 2015 | Manufacturing Business Technology
By Andy Szal
The American Chemistry Council announced an ad campaign highlighting recent evaluations of bisphenol A as "safe."
The ads—running in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and on consumer, news and health websites—urge readers to "listen to the science" on BPA, a synthetic compound found in many plastics and resins.
The chemical industry trade group cites findings by the European Food Safety Authority that BPA poses "no health risk to consumers of any age group," as well as a recent “unambiguous” response from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration affirming that BPA is safe.
"Together, the EFSA and FDA reviews show that today's consumer products that rely on BPA are safe," the ads state.
EU regulators said high doses of BPA could have negative health impacts, but the report concluded current exposure levels—from food packaging, dust, cosmetics and thermal paper—remained well below the chemical's "tolerable daily intake."
And although the FDA has banned BPA in baby bottles since 2012, the agency has not taken action to more broadly restrict use of the chemical.
Scientific studies, however, haven't been as kind, linking BPA to a range of physical and behavioral problems. Several U.S. states have taken action to further regulate the use of BPA in recent years, and plastics manufacturers have responded to consumer concerns with an increasing range of "BPA-free" products.
Many of those manufacturers utilize an alternative chemical called BPS, which researchers say mirrors the endocrine-disrupting effects of BPA and could have many of the same health concerns. -
(ACC Mentioned) Bourne Recycling: Banning Plastic Bags Has Many Benefits
Mar 4, 2015 | CapeNews
There is a growing movement for towns to ban the use of certain single-use plastic bags. The concern arises from the growing impact on land and water, such as the injury or death of fish and animals, pollution, storm drain clogging, the burden on waste collection, and the use of millions of barrels of fossil fuel for their manufacture.
The United States uses 100 billion bags per year of which only 10 percent are recycled. Most go to landfills where they can take up to 1,000 years to break down. Bourne alone spends in excess of $30,000 annually cleaning up wind-blown litter, a significant amount of which is spent using special equipment and manpower to remove these bags from trees surrounding the disposal facility.
One source states that over 200 communities in the US have banned or plan to ban plastic bags. On the Cape, eight towns have passed bans and set start dates, four have bans but have yet to set start dates, and six have proposals under consideration.
The town bylaws define the kinds of bags banned, the exemptions, the establishments involved, and the enforcement. All of the above can vary from town to town. Generally, any businesses selling goods, articles, food or personal services cannot use single-use low-density polyethylene plastic bags with integral handles under 1.5 mils (or sometimes 2.5 mils). Sometimes biodegradable, compostable or oxo-biodegradable bags are also banned. Stores are encouraged to provide or sell paper or reusable bags.
There are some exemptions using thin film bags with no handles for such items as dry cleaning, newspapers or to separate meat, produce, or wet items from the other foods in grocery bags. Heavier single-use plastic bags (over 1.5 mils) with handles can be used when necessary, along with cloth or other reusable bags.
These bylaws are usually enforced by any town police officer, a board of health agent or designated others. Sample fines run from $50 for the first offense up to $200 for the third or subsequent offenses.
There is opposition to this ban by the American Chemistry Council and other groups who state that plastic bag manufacturing uses much less energy and water than paper, bags have less volume and weight, and are strong, convenient and free. With 30,000 people in the industry in the US, there is concern over hurting jobs or business; however, given all the problems and expense caused by using these bags, many communities feel that the detriments outweigh the benefits.
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(ACC Mentioned) Plastics Recycling Update Magazine
Mar 4, 2015 | Resource Recycling
The group, which held the annual meeting last week following the Plastics Recycling Conference, reported record membership and revenues topping $1 million in 2014. Eight new members were also welcomed at the Dallas meeting.
Steve Alexander, APR’s executive director, laid out the group’s key challenges: Labels – APR's Full Wrap Shrink Sleeve Working Group continues to look into label floatability to increase and support container recycling.Degradables – The organization continues to be concerned about marketing claims of certain additives and is closely monitoring the activity at the federal level following a recent ruling by a Federal Trade Commission judge regarding a biodegradable additive producer’s marketing claims.Closures – APR is also looking into closure recycling and ways to spearhead increased recovery.Problem containers – The group is urging its members to notify APR about problem containers in the market.
In terms of other major activities, APR is helping influence ASTM’s various definitional efforts, including current committees focusing on the resin code used on containers and on the definition of biodegradation. APR also plans to take part in Walmart’s packaging initiatives as well as supporting the Recycling Partnership, a Curbside Value Partnership effort to increase municipal recycling tonnages in select cities.
The association also is planning a number of open webinars in 2015, including those focusing on EPS recycling, the promotion of recycling collection programs where caps stay on recovered plastic bottles, and a summary of APR efforts to support domestic recycling markets.
APR’s 36-member rigid plastics committee is developing promotional materials targeting grocers, noting that the value of mixed rigid plastics is worth three times that paid for the old corrugated containers that stores generate. The committee is also very active in addressing issues regarding thermoform and PP packaging recovery.
A second active committee has targeted expanded polyolefin recovery. This group is assessing better ways to separate PP and PE and is also focusing on those PP packaging design factors, such as packaging size and shape, that affect recovery at local recycling plants.
A new APR educational project involves having association executives and members make presentations to brand owner executives regarding key plastics recycling issues and concerns, and to present them summaries of key APR technical research on recyclability.
One of APR’s newest efforts is the re-establishment of a films recycling committee. The group is considering ways to work closely with the films recycling work being undertaken by the American Chemistry Council. Like other APR committees, this group will try to address how to get more clean material for recycling.
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House Bill Would Ban Sale, Distribution Of Microbeads in Personal Care Products
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Bipartisan legislation introduced March 4 in the House would ban the sale or distribution of personal care products—such as exfoliants, soap and toothpaste—that contain synthetic plastic microbeads, starting Jan. 1, 2018.
The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 was jointly introduced by Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee , and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the committee's ranking member. It would amend Section 601 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 361).
The bill, which Upton described as “common-sense, bipartisan legislation,” is designed to protect U.S. waters from accumulation of plastic pollution and fish and other aquatic life from toxic chemicals.
“We have a responsibility to put a stop to this unnecessary plastic pollution,” Pallone said in a March 4 statement. He said U.S. waters can be protected by phasing out the use of plastic microbeads that are designed to wash down the shower drains and transitioning to non-synthetic alternatives.
Upton also said in a March 4 statement he looks forward to working with his colleagues on the committee to ensure passage of this legislation.
The bill's backers say microbeads are plastic particles, smaller than 5 millimeters in diameter.
After washing down the drains, the microbeads pass through the filters of wastewater treatment plants and end up in rivers, lakes and other larger bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, the world's largest source of freshwater.
“This common sense, bipartisan legislation is a win-win for consumers and our Great Lakes ecosystem,” Upton said.
Microbeads Added to Personal Care Products
Microbeads are added to personal care products such as soap and face wash and to certain products classified as over-the-counter drugs, as an alternative to natural abrasives such as crushed almonds or pumice.
“Since the National Association of Clean Water Agencies believes that products that create problems for wastewater utilities and the environment should be kept out of sewer systems, we support federal legislation to prohibit the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetic products,” Cynthia Finley, the association's regulatory affairs director, told Bloomberg BNA in a March 4 e-mail.
NACWA represents more than 300 publicly owned wastewater utilities.
A microbeads ban has been approved in Illinois, and similar measures are under consideration in 16 other states, including Colorado and Vermont.
In Colorado, Johnson & Johnson, the Personal Care Products Council, the Colorado Retail Council and the Colorado Water Congress all have testified in favor of a bill banning these products (35 DEN A-11, 2/23/15).
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), however, in December vetoed a measure to ban these products (240 DEN A-7, 12/15/14).
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Senator Seeks Probes of Chinese Flooring, Draws Parallel to Defective Drywall ‘Debacle'
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
Federal investigations should be conducted into the safety of laminated wood flooring produced in China, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) urged in a letter to the chiefs of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Trade Commission.
Nelson's March 4 request comes in the wake of a 60 Minutes report and a class action alleging that Chinese-made laminated wood flooring sold by Lumber Liquidators Inc. exceeded California's limits for formaldehyde despite the company's marketing to the contrary (42 DEN A-11, 3/4/15).
Nelson compared the reports to defective Chinese drywall previously investigated by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, of which he is the ranking member.
“Unfortunately, the laminate wood flooring sold by Lumber Liquidators bears resemblance to that defective product, which was widely installed in Florida homes, caused metal corrosion, and negatively impacted public health,” he said.
“Furthermore, the drywall debacle also showed that Chinese manufacturers often refuse to stand behind their products—even when they cause great harm to American consumers,” Nelson said.
Nelson said the three agencies should investigate the safety of specific Chinese wood laminate products to determine if they present a risk to the public.
The federal inquiries are necessary, Nelson said, because the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to finalize regulations for implementation of the Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act, which adopts the California formaldehyde standard at issue in the class action.
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Report Spurs Senate Request for Probe of Flooring Retailer
Mar 4, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
A Senate Democrat requested an investigation today into levels of formaldehyde in imported laminate boards sold by a major retailer, comparing the matter to notorious cases of Chinese-made drywall that was linked to health problems.
CBS News' "60 Minutes" reported last week on tests showing that laminate flooring sold by Lumber Liquidators contained levels of formaldehyde above a health standard set by California, despite company labels declaring the flooring as compliant. The laminate that showed high formaldehyde levels was made in China, the show reported.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), the ranking member on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said today the issue resembled that of drywall imported from China. Congress passed the Drywall Safety Act in 2012 to set higher standards for domestic and imported drywall as a result.
Nelson asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Federal Trade Commission to "independently investigate and test these specific Chinese wood laminate products to determine if they present a risk to the public" and to evaluate if laminate wood products are marketed in a way that would constitute an "unfair or deceptive trade practice."
"Because this could affect millions of homeowners, it's imperative we get some answers quickly," Nelson said in a statement.
U.S. EPA proposed two rules in 2013 to align federal standards with the stricter limits set by the California Air Resources Board and to create a third-party certification program to monitor retailers' supply chains to verify that composite wood products made in the United States comply with the requirements (E&ENews PM, May 29, 2013).
But the agency has not finalized the rules in the face of opposition from industry groups.
In the "60 Minutes" report, Denny Larson, the executive director of Global Community Monitor, was quoted as saying Lumber Liquidators should have to foot the bill to remove the affected laminate from homes where it was installed.
Tests showed Lumber Liquidators' U.S.-made laminates met the standard, while the Chinese products failed to do so, sometimes by significant margins. The report quoted managers at the company's Chinese factories saying they used laminate with excessive levels of formaldehyde and mislabeled it as meeting California regulations.
A top EPA official mentioned the "60 Minutes" report while speaking at a chemical industry conference in Baltimore this week.
EPA programs on "legacy chemicals," like formaldehyde in composite wood products, regulated under specific laws rather than the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, are "a very, very high priority for the agency," said Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, the director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.
Though she didn't comment on the agency's delay of the regulations, Cleland-Hamnett noted the report "mentioned the fact that EPA is developing a national standard."
In the CBS report, the company's founder and chairman, Tom Sullivan, disputed the methodology behind the tests, which were performed by outside laboratories.
The company's stock declined by more than 25 percent Monday, the day after the report aired, CNN reported. The company has said some of its critics are trying to profit by lowering its stock price, which the "60 Minutes" report noted.
The report "does not measure a product according to how it is actually used by consumers," the company said in a statement this week. "Our laminate floors are completely safe to use as intended."
The company didn't respond to a request for comment on Nelson's request for an investigation.
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EPA's Design for Environment Program Renamed Safer Choice, Gets New Logo
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz
The Environmental Protection Agency's Design for the Environment program is getting a new name—Safer Choice—and a new logo, the agency announced.
The new logo will go on the labels of consumer products that contain only chemicals that the EPA has reviewed and that meet high environmental or human health standards.
The logo consists of a rectangle with the words “Safer Choice: Meets U.S. EPA Safer Product Standards” and the outline of a home with green leaves sprouting at the top of the rectangle.
The EPA's New Safer Choice Labels
The EPA also has developed an alternative logo that features a circle at the top instead of a house. This was in response to requests from manufacturers who sell products meant for institutional settings, not household settings.
A third version of the logo is the same as the first but features the phrase “Fragrance Free” at the top left. This version can be used only on products the EPA has verified as being fragrance free.
‘Did Not Convey Safer Chemicals.'
“We heard from consumers who said ‘[The old logo] did not convey safer chemicals and high standards,' ” Jim Jones, head of the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said at the March 4 unveiling of the new logo.
Jones' office began the process for developing a new logo in June of last year.
It reached out to stakeholders, including product manufacturers and retailers, and also conducted focus groups with consumers.
With the new logo, Jones said, “consumers will recognize and understand that, if they're buying a Safer Choice product, it's safer for human health, safer for their family and safer for the environment.”
Will Begin Appearing in Late Spring
Clive Davis, the head of the Safer Choice program, said products featuring the new logo will be sold in stores beginning in late spring (174 DEN A-4, 9/9/14).
Davis said the EPA has no formal plans to phase out the old Design for the Environment logo and that companies can continue using it. Companies can even place both the old and the new logo on their products if they wish, Davis said.
“I don't think we need to have a hard deadline,” he said. “The value of the new logo is significantly greater than the value of the existing logo in communicating a message.”
Davis added, “Folks will want to move quickly to the new logo.”
‘Looks Great.'
The new logo won praise from the world's largest retailer.
“The new Safer Choice label looks great,” Manuel Gomez, vice president for sustainability at Walmart, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail. “Walmart is pleased to have helped the EPA in the development of this logo that will help customers make more informed buying decisions.”
The Consumer Specialty Products Association, which represents many manufacturers of products that might be eligible for a Safer Choice logo, was more measured in its response.
In a statement, it noted that products that don't feature this logo shouldn't be interpreted by consumers as being unsafe.
“Our members’ products are formulated and evaluated for safety and effectiveness before entering the marketplace,” Chris Cathcart, the group's president, said.
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EPA Overhauls Household Chemical Label System
Mar 4, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is overhauling its voluntary labeling system for designating that household cleaners and contain environmentally safe ingredients.
The “Safer Choice” system is the new iteration of its “Design for the Environment” labels, meant to certify products that are safe for the environment, pets, children and adults.
EPA head Gina McCarthy unveiled the new label design Wednesday in a video with her dog Emma.
“We all want the cleaning products we use in our homes to be safe for our kids, our pets and the environment,” McCarthy said in the video.
“Starting later this spring and summer, you’ll start to see the Safer Choice label on products like kitchen and bath cleaners, carpet cleaners and laundry detergents and more.” Energy & Environment Best Sellers:The End of Energy: The U…Michael J. Graetz (Paperbac…$12.49Energy, Environment, an…Richard Wolfson (Paperback…$5.00Sustainable Energy - Wit…David JC MacKay (Paperba…$29.8712>Privacy
The EPA undertook an effort to redesign the program last year in as an attempt to make it easier for consumers to identify products that meet the environmental standards for safety.
The agency’s Office of Inspector General also recommended changes, saying in a report last year that the previous logo “does not adequately communicate to the consumer that the product is a safer product.”
In addition to the main “Safer Choice” label, the EPA produced logos for commercial and fragrance-free products under the program.
“The name says it all: Safer Choice products are safer for you, your kids, your pets and the environment,” McCarthy wrote in a blog post.
“Our scientists employ a stringent set of human health and environmental safety standards when reviewing products for the Safer Choice program, so a product with the label is backed by EPA science. Consumers know it’s a credible stamp they can trust.”
The EPA said the Clorox Co., Wal-Mart Stores Inc.,CLR, Earth Friendly Products, Bissell Inc., Wegmans Food Markets Inc. and hundreds of other brands have already agreed to use the new label.
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US EPA Extends Comment Period on 13 Snurs
Mar 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has extended the comment period on its proposed new use rules (Snurs) for 13 chemicals to 23 April. They were published in the Federal Register in January (CW 7 January 2015).
The 45-day extension was granted following requests from companies for more time to research and submit more detailed comments.
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EU Chemicals Agency Seeks Input On Two ‘Substances of Very High Concern'
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is calling for comments through April 16 on the listing under the European Union's REACH regulation of two chemicals as “substances of very high concern” (SVHCs), a designation that ultimately could lead to use of the substances being prohibited.
The first substance is 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, di-C6-10-alkyl esters; 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, mixed decyl and hexyl and octyl diesters with 0.3 percent of dihexyl phthalate, which is used as a plasticizer and lubricant and was nominated by the Swedish authorities as an SVHC on the basis of its reprotoxic properties.
The substance currently is not registered under REACH and is little used in the European Union, according to the SVHC dossier that Swedish authorities submitted.
The second proposed SVHC listing is a group of substances under the heading 5-sec-butyl-2-(2,4-dimethylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl)-5-methyl-1,3-dioxane [1], 5-sec-butyl-2-(4,6-dimethylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl)-5-methyl-1,3-dioxane [2] [covering any of the individual isomers of [1] and [2] or any combination thereof].
The Netherlands proposed the listing of the group of substances on the basis that they are very persistent and very bioaccumulative. Two of the substances in the group are registered under REACH, including one substance with the trade name Karanal, which is used in cosmetics, according to the SVHC dossier the Netherlands provided.
ECHA said that information should be included on the identity of the substances, their uses, any risks they pose and possible substitutes for them.
Substances listed as SVHCs can be prioritized for inclusion in Annex XIV of REACH, which means their use could be banned in the EU, unless specific continued-use authorizations are granted.
So far, 161 substances have been listed as SVHCs and 31 have been added to Annex XIV of REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals).
ECHA published the consultation documents March 2.
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Companies in Europe Advised to Monitor REACH Substance Evaluation Appeals
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
A transition has started in the type of case heard by the Board of Appeal of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which oversees the European Union's REACH law, according to speakers during a webinar hosted by the Brussels office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
Whereas in the past five years appeals filed to the Board of Appeal have largely concerned ECHA decisions relating to substance registrations and fee payments, cases now are starting to be filed on substance evaluation decisions, Steptoe & Johnson representatives said.
Substance evaluation is the REACH process under which authorities in EU member states investigate substances that are thought to pose potential environmental or health risks.
Evaluations can lead to ECHA issuing legally binding requests to registrants to carry out tests or to provide additional information on substance properties. Ultimately, evaluations could lead to substances being restricted or banned under REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals).
Steptoe partner James Searles said ECHA requests to registrants for more substance information could be “complex and potentially costly,” and Board of Appeal substance evaluation rulings would be “highly important” to ensure the validity of ECHA's requests.
First Evaluation Appeals
The ECHA Board of Appeal received the first petitions over substance evaluation decisions in 2014 (108 DEN A-12, 6/5/14).
ECHA has said six evaluation-related appeals have been filed to date.
Most recently, ECHA published an announcement March 3 of an appeal BASF filed in December 2014 concerning an ECHA decision requiring the company to carry out tests to determine certain properties of triclosan, an antibacterial substance that is widely used in consumer products.
BASF argued that ECHA's decision did not take into account the possibility of using non-animal tests to generate information on triclosan and that the decision would lead to the “unnecessary sacrifice of animals.”
Searles said ECHA decisions following substance evaluations might be considered disproportionate if they involved the registrant taking action that was not necessary to meet the objectives of the evaluation, was inadequate for meeting the objectives, or was not the “least onerous” way to meet the objectives.
Companies that receive an ECHA decision following a substance evaluation also should check that no breach of REACH is involved, Searles said.
This could be the case, for example, if ECHA breaches its duty to provide an “adequate statement of reasons for the request,” or if ECHA requires animal testing that would contravene the REACH principle of minimization of the use of animals, he added.
Practical Issues
Anne Croxon, REACH regulatory manager for International Flavors & Fragrances Inc., said substance evaluation and ECHA's issuance of decisions to registrants involves short deadlines and could be “resource intensive” for recipients of decisions.
International Flavors & Fragrances filed in May 2014 an appeal against a substance evaluation decision arguing, similarly to BASF, that the decision breached the principle of proportionality and would lead to unnecessary animal tests.
Croxon said contesting a substance evaluation decision could involve practical difficulties, such as coordinating a response from multiple registrants of a substance within a short period, or agreeing on sharing of costs.
Steptoe partner Ruxandra Cana said though appeals related to REACH substance evaluation were a new area, the ECHA Board of Appeal has established a good reputation from previous petitions related to substance registrations and fees.
“We can testify to their complete independence from the other services” of ECHA, Cana said.
The Steptoe webinar took place Feb. 24.
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Mar 5, 2015 | Insurance News Net
Good morning, Chairman Ratcliffe, Ranking Member Richmond, and other distinguished members of the committee. My name is Matthew Eggers, and I am a senior director of the U.S. Chamber's National Security and Emergency Preparedness Department. On behalf of the Chamber, I welcome the opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies regarding industry's perspectives on the president's cybersecurity information-sharing proposal.
The Chamber's National Security and Emergency Preparedness Department was established in 2003 to develop and implement the Chamber's homeland and national security policies. The department works through the National Security Task Force, a policy committee composed of roughly 200 Chamber members representing practically every sector of the American economy. The task force's Cybersecurity Working Group, which I lead, identifies current and emerging issues, crafts policies and positions, and provides analysis and direct advocacy to government and business leaders. Industry's interest in cybersecurity is healthy and expanding--individuals join the working group almost daily.
The need to address increasingly sophisticated threats against U.S. and global businesses has gone from an IT issue to a top priority for the C-suite and the boardroom. Chamber President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue recently said, "In an interconnected world, economic security and national security are linked. To maintain a strong and resilient economy, we must protect against the threat of cyberattacks."
My statement highlights the successful rollout of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST's) Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (the framework) n1 and the positive collaboration that many businesses and government entities have developed over the past several months, including the Chamber's cybersecurity campaign--Improving Today. Protecting Tomorrow".
I am also going to focus on policy issues--information-sharing legislation being the top legislative priority--that lawmakers and the administration need to diligently address. The information-sharing discussion puts too little emphasis on improving government-to-business sharing. The Chamber wants to expand government-to-business information sharing, which is progressing but needs improvement. n2
The framework is a good start, but more work is needed to push back against skilled attackers. Most small and midsize businesses (SMBs) tend to lack the money and personnel to beat back highly advanced and nefarious actors, such as organized criminal gangs and groups carrying out state-sponsored attacks. No single strategy can prevent advanced and persistent threats--popularly known as APTs in cybersecurity jargon--from breaching an organization's cyber defenses.
Policymakers have not sufficiently acknowledged this expensive, practical reality. American companies should not be expected to shoulder the substantial costs of cyberattacks emanating from well-resourced bad actors such as criminal syndicates or nation-states--costs typically absorbed by national governments. Nation-states or their proxies and other sophisticated actors are apparently hacking businesses with impunity--and that has got to stop.
In addition to having policymakers acknowledge cost concerns, the Chamber would welcome working with the administration and Congress on establishing an intelligent and forceful deterrence strategy, utilizing an array of U.S. policy tools, which the United States currently lacks. U.S. policymakers need to focus on pushing back against illicit actors and not on blaming the victims of cybersecurity incidents. n3
The Framework Is an Excellent Example of an Effective Public-Private Partnership. Critical Infrastructure Awareness of the Framework Is Strong, and Sector Activities Are Robust and Maturing
The Chamber believes that the framework--which was released last February--has been a success. The framework represents one of the best examples of public-private partnerships in action. NIST and stakeholders in the public and private sectors should have a great sense of accomplishment. The Chamber, sector-based coordinating councils and associations, companies, and other entities collaborated closely with NIST in developing the framework since the first workshop was held in April 2013.
Critical infrastructure sectors are keenly aware of and supportive of the framework. The Chamber understands that critical infrastructures at "greatest risk" have been identified and engaged by administration officials under the terms of the cyber executive order (EO). n4 Government officials ought to ensure that all resources, particularly the latest cyber threat indicators (CTIs), are available to these enterprises to counter increasing and advanced threats.
Further, important elements of U.S. industry are aware of the framework and are using it or similar risk management tools. Indeed, the Chamber welcomed an assessment from Michael Daniel, White House special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator, who remarked on September 23, 2014, at the Chamber's third cyber roundtable in Everett, Washington, that industry's response to the framework has been "phenomenal."
A second White House official, Ari Schwartz, senior director for cybersecurity, noted on October 1, 2014, that business support for the framework has "exceeded expectations." Such recognition is constructive and helps keep the private sector engaged in using the framework and promoting it with business partners. n5
Much of industry's favorable reaction is owed in large measure to NIST, which tackled the framework's development in ways that ought to serve as a model for other agencies and departments. In May 2014, the administration sent the business community a powerful message, saying that the framework should remain collaborative, voluntary, and innovative over the long term. n6 Interestingly, public focus on the framework has created visibility into industry's long-standing efforts to address cyber risks and threats--constant, dedicated, and mostly silent efforts that preceded the creation of the framework. n7
Most notable, since the framework's release, industry has demonstrated its commitment to using it. Many associations are creating resources for their members and holding events across the country and taking other initiatives to promote cybersecurity education and awareness of the framework. Some examples are listed here. Associations are planning and exploring additional activities as well.
. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Global Automakers have initiated a process to establish an automobile industry sector information-sharing and analysis center (Auto-ISAC) to voluntarily collect and share information about existing or potential threats to the cybersecurity of motor vehicle electronics and in-vehicle networks.
. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is developing sector-specific guidance based on the NIST cyber framework to further enhance and implement the council's Responsible Care[TM] Security Code. ACC's Chemical Information Technology Center (ChemITC) is also piloting an ISAC for the chemical sector.
. The American Gas Association (AGA) has hosted a series of webinars on control system cybersecurity, is collaborating with small utilities to develop robust cybersecurity programs, and is working with companies to review and enhance their cybersecurity posture using the Oil and Natural Gas Subsector Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (ONG-C2M2) from the Department of Energy (DOE). Among other activities, AGA has stood up the Downstream Natural Gas Information and Analysis Center (DNG-ISAC), an ISAC designed to help support the information-sharing interests of downstream natural gas utilities.
. The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA) has conducted a series of widely attended cyber and data security webinars to assist small, medium, and large hotel and lodging businesses with implementing key information security measures and risk assessments.
. The American Water Works Association (AWWA) has created cybersecurity guidance and a use-case tool to aid water and wastewater utilities' implementation of the framework. The guidance is cross-referenced to the framework. This tool serves as implementation guidance for the framework in the water and wastewater systems sector.
. Members of the Communications Sector Coordinating Council (CSCC)--made up of broadcasting, cable, wireline, wireless, and satellite segments--have participated in multiple NIST, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and industry association-sponsored programs, webinars, and panels. The sector is completing a yearlong effort within the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) Communications Security Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), which involves more than 100 professionals who have worked to adapt the NIST framework to the sector segments and provide guidance to the industry.
. The Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council has worked with DOE to develop sector-specific guidance for using the framework. The guidance leverages existing subsector-specific approaches to cybersecurity, including DOE's Electricity Subsector Cybersecurity Risk Management Process Guideline, the Electricity Subsector Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model, NIST's Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's (NERC's) Critical Infrastructure Protection Cybersecurity Standards.
. The mutual fund industry, represented by the Investment Company Institute (ICI), has added to its committee roster a Chief Information Security Officer Advisory Committee. The committee's mission is to collaborate on cybersecurity issues and information sharing in the financial services industry and provide a cyber threat protection resource for ICI members.
<SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N6563.272700.INSURANCENEWSNET.CO/B8404755.114223868;abr=!ie;sz=1x1;ord=[timestamp]?"> </SCRIPT>. The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) visited Korea and Japan in May 2014 and shared with these countries' governments and business leaders the benefits of a public-private partnership-based approach to developing globally workable cybersecurity policies. ITI highlighted the framework as an example of an effective policy developed in this manner, reflecting global standards and industry-driven practices. ITI principals also spoke at a U.S.-European Union (EU) workshop in Brussels in November 2014, comparing U.S. and EU policy approaches with cybersecurity and emphasizing the positive attributes of the framework and its development.
. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has spearheaded the D.A.T.A. (Driving the Agenda for Technology Advancement) Policy Center, providing manufacturers with a forum to understand the latest cybersecurity policy trends, threats, and best practices. The D.A.T.A. Center focuses on working with small and medium-size manufacturers to help them secure their assets.
. Through the American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil and natural gas sector has worked with DOE to complete the Oil and Natural Gas Subsector Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (ONG-C2M2). The oil and natural gas sector in 2014 established an Oil and Natural Gas Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ONG-ISAC) to provide shared intelligence on cyber incidents, threats, vulnerabilities, and responses throughout the industry.
. The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), in partnership with the National Retail Federation (NRF), created the Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center (R-CISC), featuring information sharing, research, and education and training. This ISAC enables retailers to share threat data among themselves and to receive threat information from government and law enforcement partners.
. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched its national roundtable series, Improving Today. Protecting Tomorrow", recommending that businesses of all sizes and sectors adopt fundamental Internet security practices.
Policymakers Need to Focus on Passing Information-Sharing Legislation and Deterring Foreign Attackers. The Chamber's Cybersecurity Campaign Enters Its Second Year
The NIST framework is designed to help start a cybersecurity program or improve an existing one. The framework puts cybersecurity into a common language for organizations to better understand their cybersecurity posture, set goals for cybersecurity improvements, monitor their progress, and foster communications with internal and external stakeholders. Looking ahead to 2015, the Chamber's cybersecurity campaign intends to focus on several areas, including the following:
Improving information sharing is job No. 1. The framework would be incomplete without enacting information-sharing legislation that removes legal and regulatory barriers to quickly exchanging data about threats to U.S. companies.
. Draft Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2015
On January 27, 35 associations, including the Chamber, urged the Senate to quickly pass a cybersecurity information-sharing bill. n8 The Senate Intelligence committee passed in July 2014 S. 2588, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2014, a smart and workable bill, which earned broad bipartisan support.
The committee released in February a new draft bill--CISA 2015--for stakeholder review. Recent cyber incidents underscore the need for legislation to help businesses improve their awareness of cyber threats and enhance their protection and response capabilities.
The Chamber urges Congress to send a bill to the president that gives businesses legal certainty that they have safe harbor against frivolous lawsuits when voluntarily sharing and receiving threat indicators and countermeasures in real time with multiple private and public entities, as well as when monitoring information systems to mitigate cyberattacks.
The legislation also needs to offer protections related to public disclosure, regulatory, and antitrust matters in order to increase the timely exchange of technical CTIs and countermeasures among public and private entities.
The Chamber further believes that legislation needs to safeguard privacy and civil liberties and establish appropriate roles for civilian and intelligence agencies. For example, businesses must remove personal information from CTIs before sharing them. Private entities must share "electronic mail or media, an interactive form on an Internet website, or a real time, automated process between information systems" with DHS--a civilian entity--if they are to be offered protection from liability.
CISA, which is sponsored by Sens. Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, reflects practical compromises among many stakeholders on these issues. At the time of this writing, the measure is expected to be marked up the week of March 9. The Chamber looks forward to reviewing the bill following the markup to determine its support for the base measure and any amendments. Industry is likely to strongly support CISA.
. White House cybersecurity legislative proposal (S. 456, the Cyber Threat Sharing Act of 2015)
On February 11, S. 456, the Cyber Threat Sharing Act of 2015, was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Tom Carper. It makes sense to refer to S. 456 because it is very similar to the White House's cybersecurity information-sharing proposal, which was discussed at last week's House Homeland Security Committee hearing, and released by the administration on January 13. n9
CISA offers strong protections and flexible avenues for sharing with public and private entities. In contrast, S. 456 would grant liability protections to companies only when sharing CTIs with (1) DHS' National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC)--excluding law enforcement agencies, among others--or with (2) information-sharing and analysis organizations (ISAOs) that have self-certified that they are following information-sharing best practices. (The implications of the ISAOs and the new White House executive order n10 related to promoting cybersecurity information sharing, which directs DHS to sponsor an ISAO standards organization to establish a common set of voluntary standards for creating and operating ISAOs, have not been fully assessed by industry.)
These two protected avenues for sharing CTIs are far too narrow and limiting and do not reflect the information-sharing relationships that businesses have built up over time, for instance, with DHS, the departments of Energy and Treasury, and law enforcement agencies.
Unlike CISA, businesses would not be protected under S. 456 when monitoring information systems and sharing or receiving countermeasures. The lack of safeguards in these areas is a fundamental weakness of the White House proposal and S. 456.
Under S. 456, cyber threat data shared with the NCCIC would seemingly be protected from public disclosure and may not be used as evidence in a regulatory action against the entity that shared CTIs, which is welcome. However, S. 456 neither codifies antitrust protections in federal law nor preempts state law. The bill simply references via a sense-of-Congress provision a policy statement that was issued in April 2014 by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. n11 While this provision is constructive, antitrust protections need to be written into law to be meaningful to industry.
Similar to CISA, S. 456 includes strong privacy protections. Both bills narrowly define what CTIs may be shared among private sector and federal government entities. n12 CISA and S. 456 require that businesses remove personal information from CTIs before sharing them. The Chamber urges businesses to share cybersecurity threat data with industry partners and the government. Still, the mandate to scrub personal information would almost certainly sideline smaller businesses, because the provision assumes that businesses would have the technical know-how or the resources to scrub data. To be sure, this outcome is not the intent of the bills' writers, but it is important to note that this is the likely response many businesses would have to such provisions.
And, like CISA, S. 456 would also tightly limit how the federal government could use CTIs that agencies receive. However, unlike CISA, S. 456 would sunset after five years. A sunset provision would almost certainly inhibit businesses' ability to make long-term planning decisions related to risk management and information-sharing investments.
It is necessary to highlight that the Chamber supports CISA. Compared with S. 456, CISA offers a more dynamic approach to sharing cybersecurity threat data among multiple business and government partners, coupled with stronger protections. CISA would go the furthest in helping businesses, including critical infrastructure, defend information systems against cyberattacks. Businesses would likely share and receive CTIs and countermeasures and monitor their networks on a broader scale and more confidently because CISA grants stronger liability protections and better policy tools.
Organizing roundtables with local chambers and growing market solutions. The Chamber is planning more cyber roundtables in 2015. Last year, the Chamber organized roundtable events with state and local chambers in Chicago, Illinois (May 22); Austin, Texas (July 10); Everett, Washington (September 23); and Phoenix, Arizona (October 8) prior to the Chamber's Third Annual Cybersecurity Summit on October 28.
Leading member sponsors of the campaign were American Express, Dell, and Splunk. Other sponsors were the American Gas Association, Boeing, the Edison Electric Institute, Exelon, HID Global, Microsoft, Oracle, and Pepco Holdings, Inc., and The Wall Street Journal.
Each roundtable featured cybersecurity principals from the White House, DHS, NIST, and local FBI and Secret Service officials. The Chamber and its partners urged businesses to adopt fundamental Internet security practices to reduce network and system weaknesses and make the price of successful hacking increasingly steep. The Chamber also urged businesses to improve their cyber risk management processes.
All businesses should understand common online threats that can lead them to become victims of cybercrime. Using the framework and similar risk management tools, such as the Chamber's Internet Security Essentials for Business 2.0 guidebook, n13 is ultimately about making your business more secure and resilient. The Chamber encourages businesses to report cyber incidents. Perfect online security is unattainable, even for large businesses. Innovative solutions are regularly being brought to market because cyber threats are always changing. Businesses should report cyber incidents and online crime to their FBI or Secret Service field offices.
Increasing public awareness of the framework. The Chamber urges policymakers to commit greater resources over the next several years to growing awareness of the framework and risk-based solutions through a national education campaign. A broad-based campaign involving federal, state, and local governments and multiple sectors of the U.S. economy would spur greater awareness of cyber threats and aggregate demand for market-driven cyber solutions.
The Chamber believes that government--particularly independent agencies--should devote their limited time and resources to assisting resource-strapped enterprises, not trying to flex their existing regulatory authority. After all, while businesses are working to detect, prevent, and mitigate cyberattacks originating from sophisticated criminal syndicates or foreign powers, they should not have to worry about regulatory or legal sanctions.
Engaging law enforcement. The Chamber plans to continue its close contact with the FBI and the Secret Service to build trusted public-private relationships, which are essential to confirming a crime and beginning criminal investigations. The Chamber encourages businesses to partner with law enforcement before, during, and after a cyber incident. FBI and Secret Service officials have participated in each of the Chamber's roundtables.
Harmonizing cybersecurity regulations. Information-security requirements should not be cumulative. The Chamber believes it is valuable that agencies and departments are urged under the EO to report to the Office of Management and Budget any critical infrastructure subject to "ineffective, conflicting, or excessively burdensome cybersecurity requirements." The Chamber urges the administration and Congress to prioritize eliminating burdensome regulations on businesses. One solution could entail giving businesses credit for information security regimes that exist in their respective sectors. n14 It is positive that Michael Daniel, the administration's lead cyber official, has made harmonizing existing cyber regulations with the framework a priority.
Raising adversaries' costs through deterrence. The Chamber is reviewing actions that businesses and government can take to deter nefarious actors that threaten to empty bank accounts, steal trade secrets, or damage vital infrastructures. While our organization has not formally endorsed the report, the U.S. Department of State'sInternational Security Advisory Board (ISAB) issued in July draft recommendations regarding cooperation and deterrence in cyberspace.
The ISAB's recommendations--including cooperating on crime as a first step, exploring global consensus on the rules of the road, enhancing governments' situational awareness through information sharing, combating IP theft, expanding education and capacity building, promoting attribution and prosecution, and leading by example--are sensible and worthy of further review by cybersecurity stakeholders. n15
The Chamber believes that the United States needs to coherently shift the costs associated with cyberattacks in ways that are legal, swift, and proportionate relative to the risks and threats. Policymakers need to help the law enforcement community, which is a key asset to the business community but numerically overmatched compared with illicit hackers. n16
Making incentives work. In an April 2013 letter to NIST regarding businesses' use of the framework and the role of incentives, the Chamber provides its views on extending liability protections related to information-sharing legislation, a safe harbor related to using the framework, SAFETY Act applicability to the framework; eliminating cybersecurity regulations, leveraging federal procurement, and making the research and development (R&D) tax credit permanent. n17
The Chamber appreciates that the administration is assessing a mix of incentives that could induce businesses to use the framework. n18 However, in the Chamber's view, it is imperative that the administration, independent agencies, and lawmakers extend to companies the assurance that the cybersecurity framework and any actions taken in relation to it remain collaborative, flexible, and innovative over the long term. The Chamber believes that the presence of these qualities, or the lack thereof, would be a key determinant to use of the framework by U.S. critical infrastructure as well as businesses generally.
Roadmap for the Future of the Cybersecurity Framework
In February 2014, NIST released a Roadmap to accompany the framework. The Roadmap outlines further areas for possible "development, alignment, and collaboration." n19 The Chamber noted in an October 2014 letter to NIST some key areas that it sees as needing more attention. The Chamber would highlight for the committee the importance of aligning international cybersecurity regimes with the framework.
Many Chamber members operate globally and appreciate that NIST has been actively meeting with foreign governments urging them to embrace the framework. Like NIST, the Chamber believes that efforts to improve the cybersecurity of the public and private sectors should reflect the borderless and interconnected nature of our digital environment.
Standards, guidance, and best practices relevant to cybersecurity are typically industry driven and adopted on a voluntary basis; they are most effective when developed and recognized globally. Such an approach would avoid burdening multinational enterprises with the requirements of multiple, and often conflicting, jurisdictions. n20 The administration should organize opportunities for stakeholders to participate in multinational discussions. The Chamber encourages the federal government to work with international partners and believes that these discussions should be stakeholder driven and occur on a routine basis.
Passing an Industry-Supported Information-Sharing Bill Is the Chamber's Top Cyber Legislative Goal in 2015
Cyberattacks aimed at U.S. businesses and government entities are being launched from various sources, including sophisticated hackers, organized crime, and state-sponsored groups. These attacks are advancing in scope and complexity. Most policymakers and practitioners appreciate that the intent of legislation is not to spur more information sharing for its own sake. Rather, the goal is to help companies achieve timely and actionable situational awareness to improve the business community's and the nation's detection, mitigation, and response capabilities.
Additional positive side effects of enacting cyber information-sharing legislation include strengthening the security of personal information that is maintained on company networks and systems and increasing costs on nefarious actors. The bill would also complement the NIST framework, which many industry associations and companies are embracing and promoting with their business partners. Congressional action on cybersecurity information-sharing legislation cannot come quickly enough.
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CSB Chairman Weathers Bipartisan Assault, Demands for Resignation at House Hearing
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Iafolla
Democratic lawmakers joined the Republican chorus calling for the immediate resignation of Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso during a bruising congressional oversight hearing March 4.
Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform bashed Moure-Eraso for dysfunctional leadership at the Chemical Safety Board, his role in consolidating power in the chairman's office and cancelling unfinished investigations, the toxic work environment at the agency, reports of whistle-blower retaliation, deep staff attrition, cronyism, illegal use of private e-mails for official business and his failure to comply with an inspector general.
“Until you leave this organization, these problems will persist,” committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Moure-Eraso. “There is something rotten to its core, and it is you.”
Moure-Eraso's five-year term expires in June. The White House announced March 3 its nomination of Vanessa Allen Sutherland, chief counsel at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, as the next CSB chairman (see related story).
While Republicans have sought Moure-Eraso's ouster since a June 2014 House Oversight Committee hearing, the Democratic call for his resignation represents a new level of political pressure on the beleaguered CSB chairman.
Ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) was relatively gentle, asking Moure-Eraso to consider taking early retirement to allow the CSB to move on from its current era of dysfunction, but some of his colleagues were more direct.
“I see no possible good for you personally, for the agency or the people we serve for you to serve one more day,” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.) told Moure-Eraso.
Split Seen Among Board Members
In addition to exposing the bipartisan frustration with Moure-Eraso, the three-hour hearing revealed a deep split among the four sitting board members.
Moure-Eraso and Manuel Ehlrich Jr. were on one side, emphasizing the recent productivity at the agency, and Mark Griffon and Richard Engler were on the other, pointing to significant management problems that they said must be dealt with directly.
Ehlrich said that he has “a high degree of respect for Chairman Moure-Eraso,” while Griffon said that “at this point I've lost all confidence in the chairman.”
That division among board members was especially pronounced on the subject of a Jan. 28 board motion cancelling three incomplete investigations and restructuring board governance to consolidate power in the chairman's office.
Said Step Aimed at Efficiency
Moure-Eraso and Ehlrich told the panel that the motion was a necessary step to ensure the CSB runs more efficiently. Griffon and Engler said it swept aside important checks and balances and should be rescinded.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) called that motion “a coup,” as it was kept secret from Griffon and voted on eight days before Engler officially joined the board.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said the motion's consolidation of power is “what dictators do, not what public officials in America do.”
Criticism of Senior Management
The hearing also cast a light on the prominent role that Managing Director Daniel Horowitz and General Counsel Richard Loeb have played in Moure-Eraso's chairmanship.
Along with Moure-Eraso, Horowitz and Loeb were implicated in a recent Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General report showing the three violated federal law by conducting agency business via private e-mails.
Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, blamed Moure-Eraso, Horowitz and Loeb for making the CSB “a dysfunctional, unfair and unproductive organization,” saying that all three should be fired.
Loeb frequently passed Moure-Eraso notes during the hearing, prompting Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) to ask whether Loeb or Moure-Eraso was testifying.
Lawmakers raised serious concerns about the CSB's process for making Horowitz a member of the Senior Executive Service. Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) said he's “deeply troubled by what looks like the politicization of the hiring process and cronyism” surrounding the process.
Moure-Eraso Fast-Tracked Horowitz for SES Position
Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) suggested that Moure-Eraso fast-tracked Horowitz for the SES position.
Russell questioned why Horowitz's title had changed to “senior advisor” on March 2 when the open SES position is for a managing director.
“Let me understand the sequence of attack here,” Russell said. “Draconian policies can be furthered by creating an SES position as managing director. The position is posted up on the board for anyone, as you say, to apply and magically Mr. Horowitz changes his title so he somehow positions himself and now it is your intention to hire him for this position, is that about right?”
Moure-Eraso disputed Russell's interpretation.
Vantage Report Cited
Lawmakers pointed to a report from the management consulting firm Vantage as a chief piece of evidence for the dysfunction at the CSB and the need for Moure-Eraso to resign.
The Feb. 12 Vantage report found:
• a lack of trust in senior leadership, which has resulted in a low level of confidence;
• poor communication;
• ineffective goal-setting;
• a lack of standard procedures, which, coupled with poor communication and infective matching of decision-making styles to the situation, leads to lack of trust; and
• a lack of follow-up by senior leadership, which contributes to a lack of accountability.
‘Marshall Plan' Said Needed
“I got a briefing from the head of Vantage in which he told me the only way to fix this organization is a Marshall Plan,” Griffon told the committee.
Moure-Eraso and Ehlrich, however, disputed the findings in the Vantage report. They claimed the report was compromised by interference from the CSB contracting officer, which resulted in positive developments at the agency being ignored. They have forwarded the matter to the EPA OIG for investigation, they said.
The CSB's handling of the Vantage contract drew fresh accusations of retaliation and intimidation.
On the same day that Vantage briefed the board on its findings, Horowitz removed the contracting officer from the Vantage contract, named himself the contracting officer and obtained Moure-Eraso's permission to access the former contracting officer's work e-mail account, lawmakers said.
Private E-Mails
Moure-Eraso came under fire for his use of private e-mails for agency business. The committee played a video clip of his testimony from the June 2014 hearing saying that he used private e-mail out of ignorance at the beginning of his tenure at the CSB and he hadn't done so since January 2013.
Patrick Sullivan, the assistant inspector general at the EPA OIG, testified that Moure-Eraso used private e-mail as late as August 2013. Moure-Eraso has failed to submit the necessary paperwork to certify that he's turned over all relevant personal e-mails to government investigators, Sullivan said.
Moure-Eraso said he didn't submit the paperwork on advice of a private attorney. He sent a letter saying he'd completed the request instead.
“So you're a federal official, but you did not feel you had to abide by the same laws requiring documents as other federal officials—that's the long and short of it,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said.
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Oversight Committee Calls on Head of Safety Agency to Resign
Mar 4, 2015 | National Journal
By Jason Plautz
In no uncertain terms, Republicans and Democrats alike called on the head of a troubled government safety agency to step down amid charges that he used personal email for official business and retaliated against employees.
Members of the House Oversight Committee slammed the management practices of Rafael Moure-Eraso, the chairman of the Chemical Safety Board, and blasted him for his use of personal emails for official business—the same criticism the panel is leveling at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"Until you leave this organization, these problems are going to persist. There is something rotten to its core, and it is you," said Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. "I will do everything I can in conjunction with my ranking member to make this change sooner rather than later."
Moure-Eraso's term is up in June.
"I think you should be fired," Chaffetz added, "but have the decency to actually step down and move this agency forward."
Ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., also called on Moure-Eraso to step down, saying the CSB had "has gone off the rails."
CSB is an independent agency that investigates chemical accidents and issues recommendations, but has recently been hauled in front of Congress for internal management troubles and disfunction.
Moure-Eraso pushed back against charges, telling the committee that the "important core mission work of the CSB has proceeded expeditiously" and that the board has produced eight reports in the past nine months. He declined to speak to reporters after the hearing.
At particular issue on Wednesday was the use of personal email by Moure-Eraso and two top CSB executives, which continued after he told Congress that the practice had stopped. An EPA Inspector General's report found that Moure-Eraso, Counsel Richard Loeb and Managing Director Daniel Horowitz had used personal accounts to knowingly keep emails away from other CSB employees.
Patrick Sullivan, the EPA's assistant IG, told the committee that a subsequent document request found a personal email dated August 21, 2013, from Moure-Eraso, after the chairman had told Congress he had stopped the practice.
Rep. Trey Gowdy R-S.C., hammered Moure-Eraso on the use of personal emails and the timing of the chairman's statements, charging that Moure-Eraso had lied to the committee at a previous hearing. Chaffetz likewise tried to get the CSB chairman to specify when the practice had stopped, but he declined to do so.
Gowdy, head of the House special committee on the Benghazi attacks, and Chaffetz have vowed to investigate the use of personal emails by Clinton, so the CSB hearing offers a potential preview of how House Republicans will press the issue.
Moure-Eraso said he had ceased using his personal account and had turned over all concerned emails to federal servers. But Sullivan said that a request by the OIG for all three officials to sign a document asserting compliance had not been followed up on. (Moure-Eraso did send a letter on his compliance and said he had been told the OIG forms were voluntary, but Sullivan said that was insufficient.)
The committee also highlighted fresh allegations that CSB executives had retaliated against an employee last month involved in contracting an outside consulting firm that was providing management advice to the agency. The report found that CSB employees were frustrated by senior leadership and that disputes at the top hampered the agency's mission, building on previous morale complaints.
Moure-Eraso said there was evidence that the report by Vantage Human Resource Services had been doctored to make it more critical of senior leadership and worked to keep correspondence confidential. He has asked the EPA IG to look into the matter.
In response, the committee charges, the employee was demoted and Horowitz himself was assigned as the contracting officer. According to the committee, the employee in question was removed from the Vantage contract within minutes of the report being presented to the CSB and was demoted days later (the employee had also spoken to the committee that week).
"Retaliation is something we will not stand for on both sides of the aisle," said Cummings.
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Interior to Decide ‘Soon' on Extensions For Shell Drilling Leases in Offshore Arctic
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Royal Dutch Shell Plc should learn soon whether it will get extensions for its leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska's north coast, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said March 4.
Litigation, slow regulatory procedures and short Arctic drilling seasons led the company to submit requests in July to the Interior Department to allow five-year extensions of the leases. The leases number in the hundreds and were acquired mostly in 2007 and 2008, with lease expirations upcoming for the latest leases in 2020, according to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
“We will be resolving that fairly soon,” Jewell told Murkowski during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.
“We are actively working with them on suspensions,” Jewell said, referring to the “suspension of operations” requests from Shell that would allow the five-year extensions of the leases.
Shell has committed about $6 billion to acquire and pursue development of its leases on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Arctic, but there really aren't enough drilling seasons left to drill more than a handful of sites before the leases expire, Murkowski said. She prodded Jewell to give Shell a response to its request and suggested eight months is too long to take on such requests.
Fee Proposals Criticized
Murkowski used the budget hearing to renew her criticisms of how Interior is treating energy producers in general and Alaska in particular.
“Somewhat stunningly to me, when oil prices have fallen dramatically, the department indicates that it will propose a host of new fees and royalty rate increases on energy producers that will exceed $2.5 billion,” Murkowski said.
“Energy producers are already fleeing our public lands because of regulatory headaches and permitting delays,” the senator said.
Jewell responded that Interior has been criticized for not doing enough to inspect oil and gas wells on public lands, raising the possibility of more oil spills and natural gas leaks.
A “modest fee” for inspection and enforcement, included in the department's budget request for fiscal year 2016, is a reasonable request, the secretary said.
Details Wanted on ANWR Plan
Murkowski said the Obama administration has withdrawn more than 22 million additional acres of Alaska from the possibility of energy production, limiting much potential for jobs and economic benefits for Alaskans.
The most notable step was the issuance of a revised comprehensive conservation plan Jan. 27 for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge along with a final environmental impact statement. The plan included a proposal to extend wilderness status to all of ANWR, an idea that angered Murkowski, as the administration may have expected (19 DEN A-22, 1/29/15).
Murkowski said she would be seeking information from Interior on when the plan was initiated, who worked on it, how the plan came to be and the thinking behind it.
Treatment of Company Questioned
The senator questioned the treatment of ConocoPhillips Co., which recently won approval from the Bureau of Land Management for oil production from the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska only after it agreed to contribute $8 million to a compensatory mitigation fund (32 DEN A-11, 2/18/15).
She said she was concerned that the government was moving in the direction of a “pay to play” regulatory strategy that targets companies with deep pockets for extra money to protect their investments.
Jewell said it wasn't unusual to ask companies to fund compensatory mitigation activities when direct mitigation measures—such as avoidance of an area—aren't practical.
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FERC OKs Building of Parts of Dominion Cove LNG Project, Algonquin Transmission Project
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nushin Huq
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Dominion Cove LNG LP's request to proceed with construction of the outside battery limit areas at its liquefied natural gas terminal in Calvert County, Md., the commission said in an order issued March 4 (Docket No. CP13-113-000).
Dominion had requested the approval Jan. 13 to proceed with construction of that area, which is described in volume 19 of its implementation plan, FERC said.
The commission also approved Dominion's Oct. 21 request to proceed with construction of specific spill containment systems, including Amine Sump 1,2, and 3 within the pretreatment area; the truck loading and unloading area within the outside battery limit area; and the heavies sump 2 within the liquefaction area, the order said.
However, FERC added in its order, the commission is still reviewing the locations of the containment systems LNG basin 1 and heavies sump 1 within the liquefaction area because of their proximity to the process equipment, and approval for construction of those systems is still pending.
In a separate order, issued March 3, FERC also approved construction activities in Dominion's LNG project, referred to as the North Ground Flare Shield Wall and North Ground Flare Mechanically Stabilized Earth Wall, which are outlined in volume 10 of Dominion's implementation plan, FERC said.
The commission found that Dominion's filings related to those activities are consistent with the environmental conditions FERC had put in place for those items.
The commission reminded Dominion that the orders don't grant the company the authority to begin construction of additional project facilities at the LNG terminal.
FERC Approves Algonquin Project
FERC also approved March 3 Algonquin Gas Transmission LLC's request for authorization to construct and operate its Algonquin Incremental Market Project in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts (Docket No. CP14-96-000).
In its request for approval of construction and operation of the project, Algonquin said that the project will enable the company to provide 342,000 dekatherms per day of firm natural gas transportation service from its existing points in Ramapo, N.Y., to various city gate delivery points in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
FERC received hundreds of filings both supporting and opposing the project, the commission said in its order. Supporters of the project emphasized its positive economic impact, while those who opposed the project worried about adverse environmental impacts, safety and nuisance related to construction of the project.
FERC commissioners reviewed the final conclusions presented in its environmental impact study and concluded that if the project is constructed and operated as outlined in the EIS, it is an environmentally acceptable action, the commission said in its order.
The commission accepted the environmental recommendations in the final environmental impact assessment and included them as conditions in the order approving the construction and operation of the project.
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Republicans Eye Attaching Keystone XL Bill To Highway Funding Measure, Hoeven Says
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Senate Republicans are considering attaching legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to a long-term transportation funding bill and other must-pass measures, since the chamber failed to override President Barack Obama's veto of the measure, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters following the vote.
The Senate March 4 voted 62-37 to override the veto, five votes short of the 67 needed. The legislation would have circumvented an ongoing administration review of the project, which has become a symbol for Obama's climate change policies.
“I think our best bet is to hook it onto something else,” Hoeven said, referring to S. 1, the bill he introduced to approve TransCanada Corp.'s $8 billion pipeline, which would carry crude from oil sands in Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas.
Other options being considered include attaching the bill or a similar measure to “another must-pass” bill, including a broader energy bill or an appropriations bill, Hoeven said.
Attaching the Keystone XL measure to the next highway bill, a multiyear bill providing billions of dollars for federal highway and transit programs, is likely to alienate Democrats from what is typically a bipartisan bill.
Among those who said they support the idea of attaching the Keystone measure to the transportation bill was Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), one of nine Democrats who voted to override the veto.
Bill to ‘Come Back,' Manchin Says
“I think it's going to come back,” Manchin told reporters. “It will come back in something that is very palatable and very acceptable.”
However, Kristina Baum, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, which will write the next highway bill, threw cold water on the idea Keystone could be included in the bill.
“His first priority is to pass a long-term transportation bill,” she told Bloomberg BNA.
When President Obama vetoed legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, he said the bill “earned my veto” because it would circumvent the role of the executive branch in ensuring the cross-border project is in the national interest (37 DEN A-1, 2/25/15).
A review of the 1,700-mile project is ongoing at the State Department because it crosses an international boundary.
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Eight Democrats Who Backed The Keystone Veto Override
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
The eight Senate Democrats who voted with every Republican to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline bill were: Sens. Michael Bennet, Heidi Heitkamp, Tom Carper, Bob Casey, Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester and Mark Warner. Sen. Joe Donnelly, a Democrat who supports the pipeline, missed the vote.
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Senate Fails to Override Keystone Veto
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor
Senate Republicans tried in vain Wednesday to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline bill, leaving the GOP with few immediate prospects for green-lighting a project whose fate the White House may soon decide on its own.
The vote — held a day ahead of schedule because of an impending snowstorm — was 62-37, short of the two-thirds required.
“Goodbye and good riddance to the Keystone bill, and thanks to the senators who stood up for our kids’ future by voting it down,” the group Environment America said right after the vote.
While widely expected, the Senate’s failure to upend Obama’s Keystone veto illustrates the stark reality facing the GOP in its quest to get the Canada-to-Texas pipeline approved: Republicans’ success relies on snaring a handful of additional votes from a small pool of Democrats willing to undercut the president.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) acknowledged this week that the veto was likely to stand, while vowing that Republicans “are going to continue to bring [Keystone] up on different things.”
GOP leaders had stayed upbeat about their slim chances of overriding Obama, but even the failed Keystone vote will allow them to turn the page after a week of brutal internal divides over immigration and funding the Department of Homeland Security. The override would have had to succeed in the Senate, where Congress’ Keystone bill originated, to move to the House.
A 1,179-mile symbol of the bitter divisions over fossil-fuel use and climate change that have polarized U.S. environmental politics for nearly a decade, Keystone now waits for Obama to make a final decision on a border-crossing permit for developer TransCanada.
“While we urge Congress to continue to fight for KXL, there should be no need for congressional action if the president would make a final judgment on Keystone,” American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement Wednesday. “The president has always had the authority on this and he can approve this pipeline today.”
Obama has no binding timeline to make that call, although a growing number of pipeline friends as well as foes now expect him to ultimately reject the project. But if he waits more than a few weeks, he can expect Keystone to return as an add-on to must-pass legislation, such as government-spending measures or the next highway bill.
After the vote, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski said she hopes Republicans won’t have to attach Keystone to appropriations legislation.
“I’m hoping that by the time we get to appropriations bills, we’ve resolved this,” the Alaska Republican said, though she added that Keystone supporters have to “consider all the options.”
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters that he is already considering next steps.
“We’ll start looking now at whether [to attach Keystone] to an energy bill, an appropriations bill or an infrastructure bill,” he told reporters shortly after the vote. He said he’s talking to Senate GOP leadership, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and pro-Keystone Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) about how to move forward.
And Hoeven said he remains confident that Keystone supporters can find a must-pass bill that Obama wouldn’t veto.
The Senate environment committee’s top Democrat, however, fired a warning shot Tuesday at any GOP attempt to link Keystone to a transportation bill that is typically crafted on a bipartisan basis. “First, they hold the Homeland Security funding bill hostage to immigration,” Sen. Barbara Boxer of California told POLITICO on Tuesday. “Now they want to hold the highway bill hostage to big polluting Canadian special interests.”
Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) also expressed reservations Thursday about attaching a Keystone measure to the highway bill — even though he had mused publicly about the idea earlier this week.
“The highway bill is kind of a must-pass bill and I hate to put people in a situation where it becomes unnecessarily controversial,” Inhofe said in a brief interview in the Capitol. “On the other hand, it could actually bring in some votes too. I haven’t done a count on that yet.”
Inhofe said he is not leading the charge to attach Keystone to the highway bill. But he indicated he might be open to such a move as long as it doesn’t jeopardize the highway bill — one of Inhofe’s top priorities as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
Greens are mobilizing to keep the pressure on Obama for a swift rejection of TransCanada’s permit bid, which they warn would imperil the climate because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions produced by western Canada’s oil-producing region. Their confidence that Obama plans to reject the pipeline has swelled in recent weeks, although the White House has not ruled out approving Keystone after the State Department finishes its six-year review of the project.
Obama’s Keystone veto was only the third of his six-year-plus presidency, but he is expected to uncap his veto pen many more times as the Republican Congress looks for opportunities to press its agenda past White House resistance. GOP leaders and aides have already begun seizing on the likelihood of more vetoes as a sign that the president is unwilling to compromise with Congress.
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Former Interior Secretary Salazar Talks Obama Admin Action on Power Plan, Oil and Gas Development
Mar 5, 2015 | E&E Daily News
How will the evolution of the utility industry converge with Clean Power Plan targets and natural gas policy? During today's OnPoint, former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar discusses the challenges facing U.S. EPA as it crafts its final Clean Power Plan rule and the impact the plan could have on grid reliability. Salazar, now a partner at WilmerHale, also weighs in on expanding oil and gas development in the U.S. and the Interior Department's proposed leasing expansions along the Atlantic and in the Arctic. Today's OnPoint will air on E&ETV at 10 a.m. EST.
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McConnell Urges States Not to Comply With EPA Carbon Standards for Power Plants
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Anthony Adragna
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged states not to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, elevating a tactic that has been debated recently among opponents of the proposed rule.
States should “hold back” plans for complying with the rule, which would set carbon dioxide emissions limits for existing power plants, to allow litigation over its legality to proceed and to allow Congress more time to act, McConnell wrote in an op-ed piece March 3.
“Think twice before submitting a state plan—which could lock you in to federal enforcement and expose you to lawsuits—when the administration is standing on shaky legal ground and when, without your support, it won't be able to demonstrate the capacity to carry out such political extremism,” McConnell wrote in Kentucky's the Lexington Herald-Leader. “Refusing to go along at this time with such an extreme proposed regulation would give the courts time to figure out if it is even legal, and it would give Congress more time to fight back.”
Refusing to comply with the rule once it's finalized, a tactic that has been dubbed “just say no,” has been debated recently by legal scholars and opponents of the EPA regulations.
Some academics and attorneys argue that states refusing to develop their own plans to comply with the Clean Power Plan will only be hurting their own ratepayers because the EPA will be forced to issue a federal plan that is less flexible and more costly.
“The benefits of saying no are really twofold,” Brian Potts, an attorney at Foley & Lardner LLP, told Bloomberg BNA March 4. “One is politics, and two is it makes EPA's life harder and it makes it less likely the Clean Power Plan will succeed,” Potts said. “The flipside is you hurt your ratepayers.”
Potts had argued that states choosing not to develop their own plans likely would face larger rate increases under federal plans in a Feb. 3 editorial in Real Clear Energy.
Up to 20 States Could Forgo Plans
However, he predicts between 15 states and 20 states could forgo developing their own compliance plans, forcing the EPA to issue federal plans.
The proposed Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) would establish unique carbon dioxide emissions rates for the power sector in each state. The EPA rule would be implemented by states, which would determine how best to achieve the emissions targets.
However, if states choose not to develop their own plans, the EPA will issue a federal implementation plan (FIP) for them. The agency said it plans to issue a draft federal plan this summer when it finalizes the Clean Power Plan to guide states in developing their own state implementation plans.
Rule Called ‘Unfair,' ‘Probably Illegal.'
McConnell called the proposed rule “unfair” and “probably illegal” and added that it would have a negligible impact on the global environment but cost thousands of jobs.
The Senate majority leader argued the EPA won't accept state plans that deviate much from its ideological agenda, meaning it won't make much difference if states submit their own plans or must instead follow a federal implementation plan designed by the agency.
“As they have in the past, opponents of EPA's efforts to clean up air pollution exaggerate claims about the potential impacts of the rule on reliability and costs,” the EPA said in a March 4 statement. “The fact is that EPA is following the law and developing a flexible program, building on successful efforts in states across the country to move to cleaner sources of energy.”
McConnell, a staunch opponent of the EPA rules, has previously pledged to use a number of congressional approaches to fight the regulations, including standalone legislation and the appropriations process which he described as his “best tool” (228 DEN A-4, 11/26/14).
Administration Has ‘Ideological Agenda.'
“The Obama administration is still threatening to impose its own—presumably more draconian—plan on any state that doesn't do as it's told,” McConnell wrote. “Since the Obama administration has already decreed that it will be the judge of whether a plan is acceptable or not, it's hard to see the White House agreeing to much that diverges from its ideological agenda.”
Rather than commit resources to compliance at this point, states instead shouldn't embark on the “costly process of complying” until there is greater clarity from courts and Congress, McConnell said.
McConnell's editorial was endorsed March 4 by Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and David Vitter (R-La.) in comments to Bloomberg BNA.
‘Just Say No.'
McConnell is the most prominent official to endorse the “just say no” effort, which has been debated by legal scholars since it was raised in a November 2014 Federalist Society white paper written by Peter Glaser, Carroll W. McGuffey III and Hahnah Williams Gaines, who are all attorneys at Troutman Sanders LLP.
That paper questioned how stringent a federal implementation plan could be given that the EPA lacks statutory authority to require power plants to do more than improve how efficiently they operate. The EPA may not be able to require significant improvements in power plant efficiency because they would be cost-prohibitive, and a plan that limits how long coal-fired units could operate might jeopardize electricity reliability, the authors said.
“Certainly, EPA has imposed federal plans in the past. But EPA has never faced a situation where it will need to force a state to reengineer such an important sector of the state's economy with such potentially enormous consequences,” the white paper said. “The outcome of a state's refusal to comply cannot be predicted, but it would leave the state no worse off than if the state begrudgingly agreed to become EPA's partner in producing potentially disastrous consequences for the state.”
EPA Lacks State Flexibility
Throughout its extensive outreach efforts prior to and after proposing the Clean Power Plan, the EPA has stressed that the rule would give states the maximum flexibility to determine how best to achieve the proposed emissions rates for themselves.
The Clean Power Plan outlines four “building blocks” states could use to comply with the rule, including heat rate improvements at power plants, shifting generation from coal-fired units to natural gas, building new renewable energy generating capacity and investing in energy efficiency programs.
However, the EPA lacks the statutory authority to force states to invest in renewable energy or fund efficiency programs, Potts said. That means the agency would have to develop federal compliance plans that are likely to focus almost exclusively on preventing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, probably increasing compliance costs in those states.
Impact Examined of Federal Implementation Plan
Daniel Selmi, a professor of law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and a visiting scholar at the Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, also argued in a March 3 report that the EPA could impose more severe emissions standards on power plants as part of a federal plan if it fears it lacks the statutory authority to impose other compliance options, such as demand reduction and renewable energy investments.
The federal plans could open up individual power plants to lawsuits by outside groups seeking to have the required emissions reductions enforced, Selmi said.
“These limits are likely to be severe, perhaps on the order of a thirty percent reduction, and under such a FIP the legal responsibility to attain the reductions would lie solely on the power plants,” he wrote. “If so, and absent other action by the state to reduce emissions elsewhere, the plants must meet those limits or face enforcement actions from EPA or possibly from citizens groups.”
States Fear Wasted Effort
State air officials, who will be charged with implementing the Clean Power Plan, say the call to defy the EPA is driven by politics rather than practical concerns. State compliance plans are due a year after the rule is finalized, and air pollution officials already have begun discussing with the EPA what measures should be included in the plans.
“I have observed a Grand Canyon-like gap in the rhetoric from some elected officials to the level of effort and optimism that many state air pollution regulators are demonstrating in responding to the Clean Power Plan,” Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, told Bloomberg BNA March 4.
Becker said state officials have been meeting with the EPA for two years as it prepared and then proposed the Clean Power Plan. All of those efforts would be wasted if state officials ordered regulators not to develop their own compliance plans, he said.
It's a particular concern as the EPA has already given several indications that it plans to revise portions of the Clean Power Plan, particularly the interim emissions rate targets that states must meet beginning in 2020, in response to state concerns, Becker said.
Would be ‘Wasted Effort.'
“All of that would be a wasted effort if Senator McConnell and others were successful in bringing this rule to a halt,” Becker said.
McConnell's home state of Kentucky, for example, has already passed legislation that limits the tools that state air regulators may use to develop a compliance strategy to largely heat rate improvements at the power plants themselves.
“What we hear is, I'll stop short of saying it'll be a slam dunk for Kentucky, but it would have been far, far easier for Kentucky to comply if the legislature had not restricted its authority,” Becker said.
Clint Woods, executive director of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, said the EPA's upcoming model federal implementation plan, expected with the final rule, could provide states guidance on how to write their own compliance plans. That model could dictate how many states choose not to pursue their own plans, he said.
“The fact is that EPA is going to provide that model, and hopefully it's at a level of detail that provides all the information that states need to have to decide the best option for their states,” Woods told Bloomberg BNA March 4.
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McConnell Urges States to Defy U.S. Plan to Cut Greenhouse Gas
Mar 4, 2015 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, is urging governors to defy President Obama by refusing to implement the administration’s global warming regulations.
In an op-ed article published Wednesday in The Lexington Herald-Leader with the headline, “States should reject Obama mandate for clean-power regulations,” Mr. McConnell wrote: “The Obama administration’s so-called ‘clean power’ regulation seeks to shut down more of America’s power generation under the guise of protecting the climate.” He added, “Don’t be complicit in the administration’s attack on the middle class.”
As Mr. Obama pushes an aggressive climate change agenda, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed regulations to slash greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of planet-warming pollution. The rules, which the E.P.A. expects to be final this summer, would require each state to submit a plan detailing how it would cut coal-fired power plant pollution. Once implemented, the plans could lead to the closing of hundreds of coal plants, in what the administration says will be a transformation of the nation’s energy economy away from fossil fuels and toward sources like wind and solar.
States that rely heavily on coal production or coal-fired electricity are wary of the plan, which could ultimately freeze demand for coal. Already, 12 states, including Mr. McConnell’s home state, have filed lawsuits opposing the plan and at least a dozen more are expected to file similar suits.
But Mr. McConnell urged governors to fight the regulations by simply refusing to submit their state plans to the federal government.
“Think twice before submitting a state plan — which could lock you in to federal enforcement and expose you to lawsuits — when the administration is standing on shaky legal ground and when, without your support, it won’t be able to demonstrate the capacity to carry out such political extremism,” Mr. McConnell wrote.
Since the moment his party regained control of the Senate, Mr. McConnell has made clear that he intends to use all legal, legislative and political means available to fight Mr. Obama’s climate agenda. While Republicans called Mr. Obama’s climate change policies an example of government overreach that could threaten jobs in the coal industry, Mr. McConnell, whose home state is one of the nations’ largest producers and consumers of coal, takes the fight personally.
For now, it appears unlikely that Mr. McConnell will be able to use his role as majority leader to completely block the rules. Even if Republicans could summon the majority required to pass legislation that would delay or weaken the rules, Mr. Obama is almost certain to veto such measures. Republicans are unlikely to have the two-thirds majority necessary to override that action.
Democrats said that Mr. McConnell’s call for states not to prepare plans appears unprecedented. Under the terms of the Clean Air Act, the executive branch is required to issue the carbon pollution rules. The Supreme Court has upheld that requirement.Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story
“It’s unprecedented that a leader in the Senate would call on states to disobey the law, which has been upheld many times by the Supreme Court,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee. “I can’t recall a majority leader calling on states to disobey the law — and I’ve been here almost 24 years,” she said.
Gina McCarthy, the administrator of the E.P.A., said that the agency had been working closely with states to develop their individual plans “since well before we put pen to paper on this rule,” and that she expected to continue to do so. “We have dialogue with all the states, including the state of Kentucky,” she said.
However, Ms. McCarthy’s agency is already preparing a one-size-fits-all compliance plan that would be imposed on states that do not create plans.
Jody Freeman, director of Harvard University’s environmental law program and a former senior counselor to President Obama, said that option would be worse for states than simply preparing and submitting their own plans.
“It would put states at a huge disadvantage if they choose not to file a plan,” she said. “It gives E.P.A. the option of implementing their own plan themselves, but the E.P.A. may not have the best plan for each state. States should be designing these plans themselves.”
Historically, states that have refused to submit compliance plans for E.P.A. rules have been forced to follow standards crafted by the department’s officials in Washington. Former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, a longtime opponent of the department’s pollution regulations, for instance, refused to submit state-level plans for compliance to other rules. In the end, Texas businesses were eventually forced to comply with the federally imposed plan.
The Obama administration is anticipating a protracted legal battle over the rules. In its fiscal year 2016 request to Congress, the E.P.A. asked for $3.5 million to hire 20 new lawyers to defend the new regulations.
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Ky. Utility Praises State's Emerging Clean Power Plan Strategy
Mar 4, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
Kentucky's top electric utility has embraced state regulators' idea of claiming credit for coal plant closures that are already in the works as a means of complying with U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities spokeswoman Liz Pratt said the state's compliance strategy must take full advantage of emissions reductions from expected or planned coal plant retirements.
Keep up to date on the latest national and state-level developments on EPA's greenhouse gas regulations for the power sector. Go to E&E's Power Plan Hub.
That tracks with a strategy being weighed by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet to accommodate a state law that limits state compliance options for the EPA rule (Greenwire, March 4).
"Kentucky, as all other states should, is seeking to implement these new requirements under the EPA's proposed Clean Power Plan in a manner which least impacts its residents," Pratt said in an emailed statement to E&ENews PM. "It would be inappropriate for the Cabinet to ignore the reality of those coal unit shutdowns and unnecessarily increase the costs that will be carried by Kentucky's electricity consumers."
The utility plans to shutter 13 percent of its coal-fired generation, or 800 megawatts. Pratt linked the closures to EPA's rules for mercury and soot- and smog-forming emissions. They are part of a statewide trend of plant closures that led Energy and Environment Secretary Leonard Peters to assert the state can meet its 18.3 percent reduction obligation under the EPA rule by 2030 mainly by claiming credit for what is already occurring and will occur.
The Cabinet discussed this strategy at a stakeholder meeting on Feb. 20 that included representatives from seven utilities: LGE/KU, Big Rivers Electric Corp., East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Duke Energy Corp., Kentucky Power, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Owensboro Municipal Utilities.
"We believe Secretary Peter's efforts to consult with affected stakeholders is the right process to find the best implementation plan possible," Pratt wrote.
The Kentucky Coal Association, which was also represented at the February meeting, has urged the state not to submit any implementation plan to EPA. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made the same case today in an op-ed column, arguing that noncompliance by states would buy time for legal challenges and legislative efforts to run their course. McConnell promised that GOP congressional majorities were "devising strategies" to knock down the rule.
But Pratt did not call on the state's Cabinet to refuse to comply with the rule. The coal and utility sectors have generally parted ways on the power rule, with coal interests taking a much dimmer view of the rule's economic effects.
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Bill to Speed Energy, Infrastructure Permits Suffers Temporary Setback in Senate Panel
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
A bill aimed at streamlining and expediting environmental permitting for major energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing projects suffered what is likely only a temporary setback March 4, when a Senate panel opted to postpone a vote on the measure due to last-minute Obama administration objections.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee, called for the delay of the committee vote on the Federal Permitting Improvement Act (S. 280). Carper cited concerns voiced in recent days by the Office of Management and Budget over the bill, which would set up a multi-agency council to better coordinate permitting of projects (42 DEN A-15, 3/4/15).
Carper assured colleagues on the committee that he would contact OMB personally to resolve any concerns the administration has but signaled that he would ultimately support the bill in a committee vote that would send it to the Senate floor.
“I would support the legislation,” Carper said, “and I am interested in getting it done.”
Neither the White House nor OMB responded to media inquiries on the administration's objections, but the bill includes a section authorizing the president to nominate one official from OMB to a new position of Federal Chief Permitting Officer.
The bill also would shorten the deadline for opponents to challenge a permit decision to 150 days, an effort designed to reduce delays related to lawsuits that can take years to resolve.
Optimism Seen on Permit Bill
Besides postponing the permitting bill, committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also pulled a second measure from a March 4 committee vote—the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act (S. 86), introduced Jan. 7 by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). It would bar federal agencies from imposing civil fines on small businesses for first-time violations.
That bill also is likely to be rescheduled for a future committee vote, although committee aides declined to speculate about timing.
Ultimately, the delay on either bill will only slow what may be inevitable committee approval, given Republicans are unified in support and outnumber committee Democrats 9-7.
Carper's vow to ultimately support the streamlined permitting bill, along with McCaskill's vote—the bill's Democratic cosponsor is a member of the Senate homeland security panel—suggests its ultimate fate will be determined on the Senate floor.
Other Measures Approved by Voice Vote
Beyond the delay of the two bills, the homeland security panel approved nine other measures by voice vote at its March 4 business meeting.
They are S. 579, the Inspector General Empowerment Act, as amended; H.R. 460, the Human Trafficking Detection Act; H.R. 615, the Department of Homeland Security Interoperable Communications Act, as amended; S. 614, the Federal Improper Payments Coordination Act; S. 558, the Presidential Library Donations Act; S. 565, the Federal Vehicle Repair Costs Savings Act; S. 546, the RESPONSE Act of 2015; S. 242, the Wounded Warriors Federal Leave Act of 2015; and S. 136, the Gold Star Fathers Act.
The Republican-led House also is moving a bill similar to the Portman-McCaskill permitting bill, a measure known as the RAPID Act (H.R. 348) introduced Jan. 14 by Reps. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.).
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law held a hearing March 2 on the measure, the Responsibly And Professionally Invigorating Development Act, along with two other bills designed to roll back environmental regulatory burdens (41 DEN A-10, 3/3/15).
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Shaheen Expects To Reintroduce Efficiency Bill In Coming Weeks
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said this afternoon that she hopes to reintroduce her long-stalled energy efficiency legislation in "the next couple weeks."
The bill, which she is authoring with Sen. Rob Portman, has been mired in procedural delays for years.
Shaheen said she hasn't yet talked to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about bringing the bill to the floor.
But she said Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski has "indicated that she's supportive of seeing something happen on it," and Shaheen expects the reintroduced bill to move through the panel.
Shaheen said there will be some minor changes to the bill. And she expects to add to the efficiency bill a series of efficiency amendments that were attached to now-vetoed legislation to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
She expressed renewed confidence that the bill will win approval this time around. "The third time is a charm, you know? So hopefully," Shaheen said.
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Energy Efficiency Bill Introduction in Coming Weeks
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Afternoon Energy
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said this afternoon that she hopes to reintroduce her long-stalled energy efficiency legislation in "the next couple weeks." The bill, which she is authoring with Sen. Rob Portman, has been mired in procedural delays for years. Shaheen said she hasn't yet talked to McConnell about bringing the bill to the floor. But she said Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski has "indicated that she's supportive of seeing something happen on it," and Shaheen expects the reintroduced bill to move through the panel.
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The EPA’s Not-So-Green Emissions Plan
Mar 4, 2015 | The Washington Post
The Environmental Protection Agency is mandating cuts in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. But dozens of environmental scientists from Princeton to Baton Rouge to Berkeley warned last month that the way the agency is writing the rules threatens to sharply increase forest clearing, undermining the EPA effort. The culprit is a familiar obstacle to good policymaking in Washington: bioenergy.
The EPA program is supposed to force power generators to cut back on fossil fuel burning and increase electricity production from cleaner sources of energy. A crucial question, then, is how much credit to give to various alternative energy sources. Replacing coal with solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal and other low-emissions technologies eliminates practically all of coal’s massive carbon footprint, so energy companies that invest in those sources should get a lot of credit.
But the EPA is still figuring out how to count electricity produced by burning wood and other forest products in power plant boilers, an energy source euphemistically called “biomass.” At the moment the agency seems off-track. In a letter to the EPA, the scientists warned Administrator Gina McCarthy that the stakes are very high: Giving biomass too much credit would encourage a lot of wood burning. This is counterproductive, since live trees pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The scientists found that obtaining a mere 4 percent of the country’s electricity from wood — a realistic outcome if the rules aren’t well-written, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — would require burning 70 percent of today’s total timber harvest annually. Other timber would still be needed for construction and paper products.
It’s not enough to demand that landowners selling wood to power companies keep forests about the same as before, because sections of forest harvested for electricity production would have otherwise kept growing, sequestering more carbon dioxide as they grew. Replanting forests would help, but only after decades of regrowth, which is hardly a positive outcome. It’s also not enough to account for how bioenergy policy affects land use in one region or even one country; the EPA must also consider how using land to grow bioenergy products in one place affects how people use land for food, fuel and recreation elsewhere.
The scientists pointed out that Europe’s biomass industry has ramped up because of poor carbon accounting, with European power companies establishing wood pellet plants in the southeast United States and shipping the product across the Atlantic to be burned for electricity. The EPA, they said, is on the verge of making the same mistake. If the West settles on faulty accounting, other nations will burn their forests for electricity and claim credit for carbon dioxide cuts, too.
It might be that, absent an opportunity to sell timber for fuel, some landowners might uproot their forests and put the land to even less environmentally sound use. But the way to promote forest conservation is to give landowners who preserve their natural resources credit for doing so, not by pretending biomass is cleaner than it is.
Fortunately, the EPA has until the summer to get these rules right.
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Senate Republicans' Bills Aim To Overhaul Key EPA Air, Climate Programs
Mar 4, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Anthony Lacey
Senate Republicans are pushing three bills aimed at significantly overhauling key EPA air quality and climate change programs, including forcing the agency to delay by several years its proposed revision to the ozone air standard and to revise its regulations in a bid to improve and accelerate its “exceptional events” air policy.
The legislation, introduced by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) March 3 as a package of bills with various GOP co-sponsors, would require amending the Clean Air Act to implement several of the changes. As a result, the measures face uncertain prospects, because while lawmakers have discussed the possibility of revising the air law, such efforts have failed to gain traction over Democrats' fears it could lead to weakening of other air programs.
Nevertheless, the GOP's control of the House and Senate could at least ensure better chances for the three bills receiving hearings and potentially markup votes this year -- particularly because current Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) is a co-sponsor on all three bills.
“All three of these bills . . . provide more certainty than presently exists to states and counties and businesses that have to deal with the EPA and will hold the Agency accountable for its decisionmaking process,” said Flake in a March 3 Senate floor speech on the measures, which are S. 638, 639, and 640.
S. 640, the Ozone Regulatory Delay and Extension of Assessment Length Act, would force major changes to EPA's national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) program by extending by five years the review period for the NAAQS. The Clean Air Act currently mandates that EPA review its existing NAAQS every five years to determine whether to revise them, but the bill would extend that review period to 10 years.
Flake in his floor speech said the bill was prompted by EPA's proposal late last year to tighten the 2008 ozone NAAQS of 75 parts per billion (ppb) down to a range between 65 and 70 ppb. While the review is already beyond the five-year air law limit, Flake said the proposal is based on a “dubious scientific basis.”
He said S. 640 “is an attempt to overhaul the EPA's unnecessary ozone standard reduction until 2018” -- though the change in the NAAQS review deadline from five to 10 years would affect all of EPA's ambient air standards, including its limits for particulate matter and carbon monoxide.
Exceptional Events
Flake and other GOP senators are also pushing S. 638, the Commonsense Legislative Exceptional Events Reform Act, which would force changes to the agency's exceptional events policy that allows states to discount some uncontrollable, unavoidable air pollution spikes from counting toward compliance with federal air standards.
State critics say the the current rule is too ambiguous and time-consuming to successfully claim an event, such as a dust storm, was exceptional.
EPA is working on a rule that aims to give states more clarity on how to claim events as exceptional, but the agency recently said it will delay the regulation due to ongoing resource limits.
S. 638 would require the agency within 180 days of the bill's enactment to revise its exceptional events rule to state “with specificity” the criteria for claiming an exceptional event. The legislation would also require EPA to accord “substantial deference” to states when reviewing the merits of their claims.
The legislation would also impose a hard 90-day deadline for EPA to decide on whether to grant or deny a claim, which follows years of delays in the agency making such decisions.
Climate Regulations
Finally, the third bill, S. 639 -- known as the Agency PAYGO for Greenhouse Gases Act, would require EPA to offset the federal cost of any greenhouse gas (GHG) rules through equivalent cuts in the agency's budget. EPA would not have to offset costs if it won Congress' approval of a given GHG rule.
In his speech, Flake said EPA's proposed climate rules for new and existing power plants prompted the PAYGO legislation. “This administration has set its sights on reducing carbon emissions, most recently putting draconian regulations on existing powerplants, despite the inevitable job losses and spikes in energy costs. . . . The Agency PAYGO Act I am introducing would simply give the EPA a taste of its own medicine by requiring the Agency to offset the Federal cost of any greenhouse gas rules to an equivalent reduction in Agency spending.” Flake added, “If the EPA proceeds without offsetting these costs from its own budget, the final greenhouse gas rule must be approved by Congress, simply saying if you cannot do this as an offset within your own budget, bring it to Congress and let's approve it. This bill specifically forbids the EPA from denying costs to Federal agencies by passing on costs to the Federal agency's ratepayers. If capital costs are imposed by a greenhouse gas rule, the EPA must offset those costs or get Congress's approval.”
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Murkowski, King Form New Senate Caucus To Focus on Issues Related to the Arctic
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrea Vittorio
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Angus King (I-Maine) are forming a new Senate caucus focused on Arctic issues.
Its aim is to demonstrate why the Arctic matters to all 50 states, not just Alaska, and it will focus on a range of topics, including national security, the environment, trade and maritime affairs.
“We really want to try to educate,” Murkowski said on the Senate floor March 4, adding that “awareness of what is happening in the Arctic has captivated the imagination and the attention of people around the world.”
“It should captivate the imagination and the attention of every member of this body,” she said.
The Arctic is receiving more attention as rapidly melting ice due to climate change makes the region more accessible for oil and gas development, shipping and fishing.
The caucus's formation also comes one month before the U.S. assumes the chairmanship of the Arctic Council, which serves as a venue for coordination among the U.S., Canada, Russia and other nations that border the Arctic or are interested in it (232 DEN A-6, 12/3/14).
Focus on Legislation, Treaty
Murkowski said she soon plans to introduce legislation that would help to develop what she called “building blocks” in the Arctic, such as better mapping of the region and better ice forecasting.
King indicated the caucus may also take a fresh look at the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an international treaty that governs commercial, navigational and environmental aspects of the world's oceans.
The U.S. has not joined the treaty, although President Barack Obama and past administrations have supported it. Doing so would require Senate approval.
“It's certainly going to be one of the topics we discuss,” King said March 4 at a scientific forum on the Arctic held by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Murkowski chairs, is holding a hearing March 5 focused on the Arctic—the first of its kind for the committee, Murkowski said.
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Alaska Senator Launches Arctic Caucus
Mar 4, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action
By Jordain Carney
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Wednesday that senators were launching an Arctic caucus, which will focus on helping build U.S. leadership in the region.
The Alaska Republican and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) are forming the caucus, which will include discussions on a range of issues including defense, energy, environment and trade.
“I'm calling on colleagues in the Senate to join me, to step up, to help us not only build out policy initiatives, but really take that leadership role we should be doing as an Arctic nation,” she said from the Senate floor. “Embrace your inner-Arctic self.”
The Alaska Republican said she also planned to introduce legislation “soon” that would help bolster infrastructure development in the region, as well as improve weather mapping and charting.
The new caucus comes as the United States is poised next month to begin a two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental group that focuses on cooperation in the region.
Murkowski is planning to hold a committee hearing Thursday, which she said will be the “first-ever hearing” on the Arctic as a whole. With other committees canceling hearings ahead of an expected snowstorm, she invited her colleagues to join the meeting.
“We may be the only committee that is open for business. We may be the only senators that are here in—in the building,” she said. “I'm encouraging all my colleagues who may be locked out because you couldn't jump on a flight quick enough or you couldn't get on the roads soon enough. ...We will be having I think a very informative hearing tomorrow within the Energy Committee.”
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Sen. Flake Reintroduces Bill to Delay Ozone Rule
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) reintroduced legislation (S. 640) that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from revising the national ambient air quality standards for ozone until Feb. 1, 2018. The EPA is under a court-ordered deadline of Oct. 1 to issue its final decision (RIN 2060-AP38) on whether to revise or retain the current standard of 75 parts per billion. The Flake bill, introduced March 3, would amend the Clean Air Act to delay that process and extend the EPA's timeline for reviewing all national ambient air quality standards from five-year intervals to 10-year intervals. Flake's office, in a statement describing the bill, said the EPA “more often than not” fails to meet its five-year statutory deadline due to the complex nature of reviews and limited resources. An identical bill was introduced in June 2014, but the Senate took no action on the bill before the end of the 113th Congress. Nine Republican senators, including Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and David Vitter (R-La.), signed on as co-sponsors. Text of S. 640, the Ozone Regulatory Delay and Extension of Assessment Length Act of 2015, is available at http://www.flake.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/643a853b-8b4e-4b8d-8343-8e272df36f48/ordeal-act-text.pdf.
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Alaska Companies Seek High Court Review Of Permit Shield Ruling for Coal Discharges
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Lars-Eric Hedberg
An Alaska energy company and state-owned railroad asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments on whether pieces of coal that fall off a conveyer belt into Resurrection Bay are covered by a Clean Water Act general discharge permit shield (Aurora Energy Servs., LLC v. Alaska Cmty. Action on Toxics, U.S., No. 14-1060, 3/2/15).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the discharges of coal are not covered by the permit and therefore are illegal.
Aurora Energy Services LLC and the Alaska Railroad Corp. urged the court in their March 2 petition for review to hear argument on a September 2014 decision by the Ninth Circuit holding that discharges of coal from a conveyor system and ship loading area into the bay are not covered by the general permit and therefore not shielded from liability, because “the express terms of the General Permit prohibit defendants' non-stormwater coal discharges” (Alaska Cmty. Action on Toxics v. Aurora Energy Servs., LLC, 765 F.3d 1169, 79 ERC 1001, 2014 BL 244533 (9th Cir. 2014; 173 DEN A-17, 9/8/14).
The companies argue they complied with a multi-sector general permit for stormwater discharges associated with industrial activity at the railroad's Seward coal export facility, where loads of coal from trains are placed onto ships for delivery, and such compliance shields them from liability related to violations alleged by Alaska Community Action on Toxics in a citizen suit.
Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency, which issued the general permit in 2009, has “known that coal occasionally spills from the conveyor” since 1987, according to the companies.
Unlike an individual permit, the EPA or permitting agency issues a general permit for a specific class of dischargers who agree to comply with its terms. This is intended to reduce administrative burdens.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska had ruled that the general National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit did not bar the companies' non-stormwater discharges of coal from the conveyor belt, and therefore they were shielded from liability, granting in part the companies' motion for summary judgment (Alaska Cmty. Action on Toxics v. Aurora Energy Servs., LLC, 940 F. Supp. 2d 1005 (D. Alaska, 2013)).
The companies presented the following question to the Supreme Court: “Does the statutory permit shield protect a permittee from liability under the Clean Water Act for a discharge where the permitting agency was aware of the discharge at the time it approved the permit, and did not include any specific prohibition or limitation on the discharge in the permit?”
Permitting Scheme ‘Undermined.'
The Ninth Circuit's decision, in addition to adversely affecting the companies, “undermines the security of thousands” of Clean Water Act permits and “undercuts the permitting agency's central role in determining the appropriate level of regulation for discharged pollutants,” they argued.
They said the Ninth Circuit's approach would effectively reverse the agency's permitting decision and the shield's protection for non-listed, non-prohibited discharges from the conveyor that the agency contemplated at the time it issued the permit.
Both the EPA and Alaska, they said, did not interpret the permit as prohibiting all non-listed non-stormwater discharges, and the district court agreed with this interpretation.
Conflict With Other Circuits
The companies contended that the Ninth Circuit's decision conflicts with those from the Second, Fourth and Sixth Circuits effectively holding that “if a pollutant is known to the permitting authority, a discharge that includes this pollutant is protected by the permit shield, even if it is not among those catalogued in the permit.”
The companies argued that just as the permitting authorities knew of heat in Piney Run Preservation Ass'n v. County Commissioners of Carroll Cnty., Md., 268 F.3d 255, 53 ERC 1257 (4th Cir. 2001), selenium in Sierra Club v. ICG Hazard, LLC, 2015 BL 18818 79 ERC 2053 (6th Cir. 2015) and unlisted chemicals in Atlantic States Legal Foundation, Inc. v. Eastman Kodak Co., 12 F.3d 353, 37 ERC 1857 (2d Cir. 1993), the EPA and Alaska knew of the coal discharges from the conveyor belt when it granted the general permit at issue here.
The reasoning in these cases would bar liability in their case, the companies wrote, because the EPA had known for decades that coal has been falling into the bay.
NPDES Program Integrity At Risk
Lastly, the Ninth Circuit's decision “treats the terms of the permit as changeable, and this deprives permit holders of any certainty regarding their operations,” according to the petition. Such an interpretation of the permit shield would create “a perpetual cloud of uncertainty” for holders, they continued.
The companies also raised institutional concerns that the appeals court's decision would undermine the relationship between agencies and permittees, who will no longer be able to rely on assurances and decisions from agencies.
Moreover, “the decision may effectively eliminate general permits” because it exposes all facilities covered by them to liability for discharges beyond the purview of the permit. As such, facilities would request individual permits to guard against litigation, according to the companies.
John Martin, Clifton Elgarten, Susan Mathiascheck and Providence Spina of Crowell & Moring LLP, Washington, D.C., represent Aurora Energy Services LLC.
Jeffrey Feldman, Denise Ashbaugh and Ralph Palumbo of Summit Law Group, Seattle, represent the Alaska Railroad Corp.
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Publication of Coal Ash Rule Not Expected Until Late March or Early April, EPA Says
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Formal issuance of the nation's first-ever standards for the disposal and management of coal ash won't occur until late March or early April, Environmental Protection Agency staff said during a March 4 webinar.
Publication of the final rule (RIN 2050-AE81) in the Federal Register is important because it starts the clock for legal challenges and compliance deadlines. All petitions challenging the final rule would have to be received within 90 days under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
The rule also would go into effect six months after its publication, beginning the clock on a number of compliance measures of varied length for the closing and retrofitting of coal ash landfills and surface impoundments.
No reason was provided by the EPA staff for the at least three-month gap between the rule's release and publication.
Released Dec. 19, the final rule regulates coal ash, a residue from coal-fired power generation, under the solid waste provisions of RCRA. States will be “strongly encouraged” to adopt the minimum federal requirements of the regulation, though the agency could not compel them to do so (245 DEN A-1, 12/22/14).
The final rule mandates regular inspections of surface ash impoundments, requires the use of fugitive dust controls to limit windblown coal ash dust and calls for the proper closure of inactive sites.
It also requires the closure of surface impoundments and landfills that fail basic engineering and structural standards, limits where new structures can be built and calls for the immediate cleanup and closure of unlined impoundments that are polluting groundwater, among other provisions.
Designed With Other Rules in Mind
The EPA staff said those compliance time lines were structured in a way so utilities wouldn't have to make decisions about the coal ash structures until they know their regulatory requirements under a new set of other rules.
Those forthcoming regulations include Clean Water Act wastewater effluent limitation guidelines for 1,200 power plants, which staff again said would be finalized in 2015, and carbon pollution limits for existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act.
For example, utility owners and operators were given an additional year in the final coal ash rule beyond the original six-month period proposed to prepare plans for closing their coal ash ponds and landfills so the companies could coordinate their decisions with the forthcoming effluent limitation guidelines.
Though utilities will have to publicly release significant amounts of information about their impoundments, there are no plans for the EPA to develop a comprehensive database like its Enforcement and Compliance History Online portal with compliance information.
Clearer Beneficial Use Guidelines
In the final rule, the EPA staff said it sought to clearly define what constitutes a beneficial reuse of coal ash rather than disposal.
Beginning six months after the rule's publication, users will have to demonstrate that unencapsulated uses of the coal ash of 12,400 tons or more—in non-roadway applications—will have equivalent environmental impact to groundwater, surface water, soil and air as analogous products.
The agency is working on a “conceptual model” for evaluating potential unencapsulated uses of coal ash. The EPA estimates the methodology will be completed internally by the end of 2015 but could be released in early 2016.
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Final Briefs Filed In Climate Case
Mar 4, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Erica Martinson
EPA and states filed their final briefs today in a lawsuit over the agency’s proposed greenhouse gas rule for existing power plants.
EPA argued in its brief that the court should reject outright efforts to undermine a 2010 settlement agreement with environmentalists where the agency agreed to promulgate greenhouse gas rules. EPA called the challenge to the agreement “both moot and untimely” and the settlement itself “obsolete.” The reason for the proposed greenhouse gas rule is not the settlement, but “to address the most critical environmental problem of our time.”
Some of the states that involved in the settlement — Massachusetts, California and New York — also filed a brief today supporting the EPA. “The time to challenge the settlement agreement has long passed, and the time to challenge the final rule has not yet come,” the states said.
But 12 states led by West Virginia disagreed, arguing that EPA cannot regulate power plants under both Section 112 and 111 of the Clean Air Act. Conflicting House and Senate language on the matter was never reconciled in conference on the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.
EPA’s assertion that it can is “nothing short of astonishing” and “convenient, newfound confusion,” the states said in the brief. EPA has read the statute differently for 20 years and “now tries to downplay these conclusions,” the states said.
Oral arguments are scheduled for April 16 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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New Climate Justice Legal Framework Is Imperative, EPA Official, Others Say
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Action is urgently needed to address climate change and its impacts on vulnerable populations and communities, attorneys and former and current environment officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the World Bank said March 4.
Governments, businesses and environmental professionals are taking steps to combat global warming through, for example, President Barack Obama's Climate Action Plan and corporate social responsibility initiatives, the officials said.
However, there is much more to be done to address climate change through a climate justice lens, such as incorporating human rights language into an upcoming Paris climate deal, they said.
“We are the first generation that is feeling the effects of climate change and the last that has the chance to do something about it,” David Rivkin, president of the International Bar Association, said.
These officials and attorneys spoke at the association's event, “An International Bar Association Discussion on Climate Change Justice and Human Rights.” The event's discussion centered on a nearly 240-page report, “Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption,” that is dated July 2014 and called for a new climate justice legal framework.
Actions Planned After Report
Rivkin said the association's working groups will submit plans by mid-April on how they plan to tackle recommendations from the report. The association will create two new working groups, as well, including one on legal issues arising from adaptation (184 DEN A-10, 9/23/14).
Rivkin, who is also an attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, said there are several actions internationally that are being taken or could be taken in the next year or two to establish protections and consideration for vulnerable populations affected by climate change.
Companies have begun conducting corporate responsibility efforts, Rivkin said. Corporate responsibility efforts could include conducting risk analyses, tracking progress and remediating harms, according to the association's July report.
Additionally, it seems plausible to get language acknowledging the human rights issues of climate change into a climate deal set to come out of an international Paris summit at the end of the year, Rivkin said.
Domestically, much has been done to address climate change through a climate justice lens over the last five years or six years, Avi Garbow, the agency's general counsel, said.
EJ Issue of Our Time
Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge the U.S. faces domestically, Garbow said. The Obama administration overall has acknowledged that through its Climate Action Plan, Garbow said.
The EPA has, for example, worked to address climate justice through examining methane emissions from the oil and gas industry and other steps.
Most notably, the agency has proposed carbon dioxide limits for existing power plants that would provide significant health benefits for vulnerable communities, Garbow said.
“Ask yourself where those power plants are located,” Garbow said. “They are, by-and-large, in underserved or underprivileged or more vulnerable communities and so the benefits associated with reducing the greenhouse gases and carbon pollution from those sources will also yield PM—particulate matter—and other health benefits that will be directly felt by those communities.”
The existing power plant proposed rule has come under fire from environmental justice advocates, who say it lacks equity and leaves too much room for states to determine how to achieve those emissions reductions. The rule is expected to be finalized this summer, Garbow said (192 DEN A-5, 10/3/14).
Following EJ Principles
Following environmental justice principles, such as conducting extensive outreach with impacted communities and ensuring decisionmakers are representative of the impacted communities, can help make these domestic climate justice actions successful, Lisa Garcia, former senior advisor to the administrator for environmental justice at the EPA, said.
The State Department should incorporate human rights considerations into its decision-making and, if not, incorporate environmental justice considerations, Garcia said.
Government efforts related to climate change should be “true mitigation” efforts, such as incorporating a greenhouse gas emissions cap rather than allowing trading, to avoid unintended consequences, such as increased energy prices for disadvantaged communities, she said.
Finally, state and local governments should implement certain climate change mitigation or adaptation efforts or rulemakings, as it could be easier to pass a rule through a local government where the community has been impacted by a climate change event, Garcia, now vice president of litigation for healthy communities for Earthjustice, said.
Other speakers at the event included Siobhan McInerney-Lankford, senior counsel at the World Bank Legal Vice Presidency; Roger Martella, former general counsel for the EPA; David Estrin, former co-chair of the association's Presidential Task Force on Climate Change Justice and Human Rights; and Motoko Aizawa, managing director USA of the Institute for Human Rights and Business.
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Committee Passes Crude-by-Rail Response Bill
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a bill (S. 546)March 4 aimed at bolstering emergency response efforts to crude-by-rail transport and other incidents. The committee passed it by voice vote, according to a committee spokeswoman. The Railroad Emergency Services Preparedness, Operational Needs and Safety Evaluation (RESPONSE) Act bill would establish a subcommittee of the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Advisory Council to review emergency response training, resources, best practices and hazardous materials rail transport response and offer recommendations to Congress. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) reintroduced the bill Feb. 24 (37 DEN A-23, 2/25/15). The bill now moves to the Senate floor, where it has yet to be scheduled for a vote.
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Phillips 66 Gas Recovery Project a Cover For Crude-by-Rail Plan, Group Says in Suit
Mar 5, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
A propane and butane recovery project a the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo, Calif., is really part of a broader effort to retool the company's two California facilities to handle heavy crude oil shipped in by rail, an environmental group charged in a challenge to the project approval (Communities for a Better Env't v. Contra Costa Cnty., Cal. Sup. Ct. , No. N15-0301, 3/4/15).Filed March 4 in California Superior Court, the complaint alleged Contra Costa County officials violated the California Environmental Quality Act in approving the project last month.
The Phillips 66 Co. is named as a codefendant.
The approval was based on an environmental impact report that failed to fully disclose and mitigate for the switch to lower-quality oil feedstocks from the Canadian tars sands and shale oil, plaintiff Communities for a Better Environment said in a news release announcing the filing.
According to the group, the project “could worsen pollution, climate and refinery and rail explosion hazards.”
Contra Costa County spokeswoman Betsy Burkhart told Bloomberg BNA March 4 that the county doesn't comment on pending litigation. “I'm not sure if anyone has seen the lawsuit,” she said.
Officials at Phillips 66 didn't respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
As described on the Phillips 66 website, the propane and butane recovery project would modernize the refinery to make it more competitive with other Bay Area refineries, and would cut sulfur dioxide emissions in half and reduce flaring.
A key allegation in the complaint claims the county failed to consider “other projects inextricably intertwined” with the Rodeo project, which the plaintiff said resulted in an “unlawfully piecemealed” analysis.
Marine Terminal Project Not Considered
The plaintiff said the analysis failed to consider the marine terminal expansion project at the Rodeo facility and two projects at the Phillips 66 refinery in Santa Maria, including a rail spur project currently pending before the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors designed to accept five 80-car trains a week.
The Rodeo and Santa Maria refineries are linked by a pipeline and together make up the Phillips 66 San Francisco Refinery.
“Phillips 66 cannot meet its propane recovery objective without switching to a lower quality feedstock, like tar sands, and without other Phillips 66 projects to assist in that overall switch,” Communities for a Better Environment attorney Roger Lin said in a written statement. “These are critical project components that the [environmental impact report] should have, but failed to, disclose to the public.”
Lin and attorney Gladys Limon, also at Communities for Better Environment, are representing the group.
Analysis Called Flawed
Other allegations in the complaint claim the CEQA-required environmental analysis is flawed because it inaccurately described the project, failed to consider the entire project's significant environmental effects and failed to include appropriate mitigation measures or consider alternatives.
The Phillips 66 project “could have significant impacts, and no one should be thinking about building it before that potential harm is disclosed and addressed,” Communities for a Better Environment's Greg Karras said.
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Schumer Calls on Regulators to 'Stabilize' Bakken Crude
Mar 5, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Blake Sobczak
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pushing federal regulators to make Bakken crude less volatile following a spate of oil train disasters.
"The inherent dangers in the shipment of unstable crude oil have become only too clear in recent years," Schumer said yesterday in a letter addressed to the Departments of Transportation and Energy, citing a July 2013 derailment and explosion that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.
He called on the agencies to develop a "stabilization" requirement for oil from North Dakota's Bakken Shale play, which would strip the crude of more flammable dissolved gases before shipment via rail.
Several trains hauling crude from North Dakota have derailed and caught fire since the Lac-Mégantic accident, although there have been no more fatalities. Last month a 107-car oil train jumped the tracks in Mount Carbon, W.Va., destroying one home and prompting hundreds of local residents to evacuate (EnergyWire, Feb. 20).
North Dakota's Industrial Commission approved an order late last year to make oil drillers "condition" Bakken crude before offering it up for transport, thus lowering its vapor pressure, a key measure of volatility. But the commissioners stopped short of requiring costly stabilization facilities to further alter Bakken crude.
Schumer acknowledged North Dakota's rules, set to take effect April 1, but said in his letter that state regulators "did not go far enough."
"They required that oil be stabilized to at least 13.7 [pounds per square inch], a [vapor pressure] standard that the oil involved in the Lac-Mégantic disaster would have met," he told the DOT and DOE. "I ask that your agencies work together to develop a standard for stabilization that would greatly reduce the risk of Lac-Mégantic type disasters."
The oil and refining industries have contested claims that Bakken crude's chemical properties played a major role in recent accidents, arguing instead that regulators should focus on track maintenance, tank car standards and railroads' operational safety.
There is little to suggest federal regulators plan to tackle Bakken crude's volatility. The draft version of a "comprehensive" DOT tank car and crude-by-rail safety rule now weaving its way through the White House didn't include rules for oil stabilization, although it would collect more chemical data from rail shippers (EnergyWire, Feb. 23).
In September, Christopher Smith, DOE's deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy, testified at a hearing on Bakken crude composition that the agency started investigating chemical properties of the oil in response to a January 2014 letter from then-Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Smith was keen to distance himself from any potential rulemaking.
"Fundamentally, the responsibility for safe transportation of these materials rests with the transportation companies moving them, and the liability for accidents must remain with the private sector," Smith said in written testimony, adding that the Obama administration did not intend to request funds for DOE to further investigate Bakken crude's flammability.
But the recent West Virginia derailment seems to have struck a nerve in Congress, setting off a flurry of interest and action among Democrats in particular.
Last month, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) reintroduced a bill to boost training options for first responders along oil train routes (E&E Daily, Feb. 25). That measure, co-sponsored by Schumer, unanimously passed the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee yesterday.
Meanwhile, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), whose state is seeing rising volumes of crude-by-rail shipments, has also pledged to introduce legislation that would go beyond DOT's tank car rule, which has faced several delays en route to its expected publication this May (E&E Daily, March 4).
"We are not moving fast enough," Cantwell told Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on Tuesday. "I look forward to seeing your rule, but we are going to come out with tougher standards."
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Bipartisan Bill Grants Reprieve on Positive Train Control Implementation
Mar 5, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sean Reilly
Railroads would get five more years to fully implement the anti-crash technology known as positive train control under bipartisan legislation introduced yesterday.
Under the 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act, the deadline is the end of this year. S. 650, sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), would push that date back to December 2020. Co-sponsors are Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and the leaders of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee: Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) and ranking member Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).
The requirement was enacted shortly after a 2008 crash between freight and commuter trains killed 25 people in the Los Angeles area. Railroad companies have long said they will be unable to meet this year's deadline, in part because of technological barriers and regulatory hang-ups. Although freight carriers have so far spent more than $5 billion on positive train control implementation, "much remains to be done before PTC can safely operate coast to coast," said Edward Hamberger, head of the Association of American Railroads, in a news release yesterday welcoming the bill.
The Obama administration has objected to a blanket extension on the grounds that it would unduly slow implementation of the new system. Instead, the White House wants to give the Department of Transportation authority to craft customized timetables for each railroad and "to get there as quickly we can get all of them there," DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a hearing last week of the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee.
As part of its fiscal 2016 budget request, the administration is also seeking $825 million to help commuter railroads pay for positive train control, Foxx said.
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