Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - April 5, 2019
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(ACC Mentioned) Interactive: Global Feb Chem Output Rises but Growth Still Slow – ACC
Apr 4, 2019 | ICIS
Global chemical production ticked up in February from January, but growth in 2019 continues to be slow, the American Chemical Council (ACC) said in its latest Global Chemical Production Regional Index (CPRI). With softness earlier than... -
(ACC Mentioned) Can Chemical Recycling Solve the Plastic Waste Crisis?
Apr 5, 2019 | Waste360
Since companies like Coca Cola and Nestlé have vowed to use more recycled plastics in their packaging, the petrochemical industry has been pushed to invest in advanced chemical recycling technologies to reduce plastic waste. -
Contractor Pleads Guilty to Mishandling Asbestos in Alexandria Affordable Housing
Apr 5, 2019 | Washington Post
By Rachel Weiner
Five years after residents in Alexandria’s largest affordable-housing complex were exposed to asbestos during renovations, the contractor hired to deal with the problem has pleaded guilty to violating the Toxic Substances Control... -
Judges Nix Second Set of EPA Coolant Regs Under Kavanaugh Ruling
Apr 5, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Federal appeals court judges struck down in large part the second in a pair of Obama-era rules limiting climate-warming coolants, saying they were bound by the court’s rejection of the first regulation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for... -
Court Tosses More HFC Standards
Apr 5, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Federal judges today scrapped another Obama-era effort to crack down on planet-warming gases used in refrigeration and cooling. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated a portion of a 2016 EPA rule... -
California Publishes Prop 65 Fact Sheet for Rental Properties
Apr 5, 2019 | Chemical Watch
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has published a consumer-facing factsheet about Proposition 65 warnings in apartments and other residential rental properties. Its purpose is to explain why a rental... -
Is “Proposition 65 Lite” Coming to New York?
Apr 5, 2019 | Lexology
By Dennis E. Raglin
With apologies to Frank Sinatra, start spreading the news…Will we be seeing toxic chemical warnings on consumer products from the Big Apple to Buffalo? If New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gets his way it looks like we will and he... -
US NGO Publishes Alternative Paint Strippers Guide
Apr 5, 2019 | Chemical Watch
US NGO Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families has published a list of alternative paint removal products to those containing methylene chloride or N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP). The organisation cites the "serious health risks" the... -
US Government Shutdown Created Food Contact Notification Bottleneck
Apr 5, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
The US Food and Drug Administration's food contact notification (FCN) review process is still playing catch-up after the partial federal government shutdown at the beginning of the year, a recent conference has heard. FCNs are the... -
Bayer and Monsanto Defend Themselves With Science They Funded
Apr 5, 2019 | Truthout
By Janine Jackson
Janine Jackson: The case is called Edwin Hardeman v. Monsanto, which sounds something like David v. Goliath. Hardeman is a 70-year-old man who says using Roundup, Monsanto’s weed killer, for nearly 30 years caused his non... -
GOP Congressman Asks for Ga. Exemption, Surprising Greens
Apr 5, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
By Russ Bynum
A Republican congressman who for years has touted the potential benefits of expanded oil drilling off the East Coast is now asking the Trump administration to exclude his home state of Georgia from its offshore energy plans. -
Interior Pursues 1 Mont. Lease Appeal as It Drops Another
Apr 5, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Pamela King
The Interior Department yesterday fired opening shots in its battle to block one Montana oil and gas lease, as the agency moves to drop a related appeal. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who hails from Montana, vowed to fight... -
BLM Ends Challenge to Reinstating Montana Oil, Gas Leases
Apr 4, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The Trump administration has voluntarily dropped its appeal of a federal district court's decision to reinstate two oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in northwestern Montana. -
Study: Dispersants Can Cut Chemical Exposure from Spills
Apr 5, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Rob Hotakainen
Using dispersants to reduce the amount of oil at the water's surface after a major spill may benefit both human and marine life, according to a report released today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. -
KMCO Legal Woes Grow as Plant Workers, County File Suit
Apr 5, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Nicole Hensley and Matt Dempsey
Claims of injuries and additional environmental violations against KMCO are mounting after one worker was killed and five more were wounded during an isobutylene-fueled explosion at the Crosby chemical processing plant. -
Senate Commerce to Examine Pipeline Safety April 10
Apr 5, 2019 | Politico Pro - Energy Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
The Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety will hold a hearing on pipeline safety April 10, according to a committee notice. Witnesses include Howard “Skip” Elliott, administrator of the Pipeline and... -
Congress Turns its Attention to Pipeline Safety Act Reauthorization
Apr 4, 2019 | Lexology
The first Congressional Hearing on Pipeline Safety Act Reauthorization for 2019 was held this week before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The Hearing did not have as much drama as last summer’s... -
The Energy 202: Young People Take Center Stage at New House Climate Committee's First Hearing
Apr 5, 2019 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
If any single group is responsible for the recent wellspring of debate in Congress over climate change, it is the young activists who occupied the office of soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just days after Democrats won back the... -
New Chief of California’s EPA Targets Air Pollution
Apr 5, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Emily C. Dooley
Jared Blumenfeld was curious about California’s Imperial County and the border region, so he visited the area—before the state Senate confirmed him as the state’s EPA chief. Locals told him about untreated waste flowing into the U.S... -
News Democrats Push to Stay in Paris Climate Deal: BGOV Closer Look
Apr 5, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith, Tiffany Stecker, and Adam M. Taylor
The U.S. would remain part of the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change under a bill (H.R. 9) approved April 4 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On June 1, 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intention to...
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(ACC Mentioned) Interactive: Global Feb Chem Output Rises but Growth Still Slow – ACC
Apr 4, 2019 | ICIS
Global chemical production ticked up in February from January, but growth in 2019 continues to be slow, the American Chemical Council (ACC) said in its latest Global Chemical Production Regional Index (CPRI).
With softness earlier than last year, the Global CPRI was up only slightly year on year on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis.
February capacity utilisation was 83.1%, down by 0.2 percentage points from January. This was also below the February 2018 rate of 84.8%, as well as the long-term average of 86.4%.
“Among chemical industry segments, February results were mixed on a product basis, with gains in inorganic chemicals, bulk petrochemicals and organics plastic resins, manufactured fibres and other specialties, offset by weakness in agricultural chemicals, consumer products synthetic rubber and coatings,” the report said.
“Considering year-earlier comparisons, growth was strongest in bulk petrochemicals and organics, and plastic resins and followed by manufactured fibers and coatings.”
By region, February chemical production rose month on month in Europe and Africa and the Middle East. Output fell in North America and was flat in Latin America and Asia.
Year on year, February chemical production remained up in North America, Asia, as well as Africa and the Middle East.
The Global CPRI measures the production volume of the business of chemistry for 33 key nations, sub-regions and regions, all aggregated to the world total. The index is comparable to the US' Federal Reserve Board production indices.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2019/04/04/10344133/interactive-global-feb-chem-output-rises-but-growth-still-slow-0xe2-0x80-acc/
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(ACC Mentioned) Can Chemical Recycling Solve the Plastic Waste Crisis?
Apr 5, 2019 | Waste360
Since companies like Coca Cola and Nestlé have vowed to use more recycled plastics in their packaging, the petrochemical industry has been pushed to invest in advanced chemical recycling technologies to reduce plastic waste.
A report from the American Chemistry Council estimates that chemical recycling could create $9.9 billion in economic output in the U.S. economy annually, including $4.1 billion related to new products generated by chemical recycling facilities.
In addition, the Houston Chronicle notes that chemical recycling is one of several focus areas for the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a nonprofit organization that includes companies that make, use, sell, process, collect and recycle plastics. This includes chemical and plastic manufacturers, consumer goods companies, retailers, converters and waste management companies, also known as the plastics value chain.
Houston Chronicle has more information:
While the petrochemical industry scrambles to find an answer to mounting plastic waste, one solution stands out as a potentially revolutionary force - chemical recycling.
New advancements in chemical recycling technologies, which revert plastics back to their original chemical components, could not only make it easier to recycle plastics, vastly cutting into the amount of plastics filling oceans and landfills, but also represent a huge opportunity for petrochemical industry, a new report suggests. Unlike traditional forms of mechanical recycling, chemical recycling can turn previously difficult-to-recycle plastics into fuels and feedstocks.
As corporations such as Coca Cola and Nestle commit to use more recycled plastics in their packaging, that’s pushing the petrochemical industry to advance the technology.
https://www.waste360.com/plastics/can-chemical-recycling-solve-plastic-waste-crisis
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Contractor Pleads Guilty to Mishandling Asbestos in Alexandria Affordable Housing
Apr 5, 2019 | Washington Post
By Rachel Weiner
Five years after residents in Alexandria’s largest affordable-housing complex were exposed to asbestos during renovations, the contractor hired to deal with the problem has pleaded guilty to violating the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Paul Potter, 76, acknowledged in Alexandria federal court that when performing asbestos removal at Old Town’s two Hunting Point towers in 2014 he did not hire accredited workers or have a trained supervisor on site.
Defense attorney Cary Greenberg said Potter believed he could remove asbestos-laden windows without actually disturbing the hazardous material.
“Mr. Potters intention was to remove the windows appropriately,” Greenberg said. “But ultimately he was unsuccessful and was not in compliance.”
Hunting Point’s 525 apartments were owned by the Virginia Department of Transportation until 2013, when the buildings were sold to a Chicago-based real estate developer called the Laramar Group. In 2011, a VDOT study found asbestos in some of the vinyl floor tiles and mastic, exterior door caulk, exterior window caulk, and interior and exterior window glaze. In early 2014, Laramar had begun renovating and hired Potter’s company, Chelsea Environmental, to remove the asbestos for $314,400.
Potter told his workers to remove the apartment buildings’ window frames intact so the asbestos would not break into smaller pieces and become airborne. But the scrapers they used on the window frames did disturb the caulk and glaze, and Potter acknowledged in court filings that he did not tell his workers to take any measures to keep asbestos from getting into the air. Debris and dust fell into tenants’ apartments, according to prosecutors, and into outside common areas.
Tenants complained to the Environmental Protection Agency, and inspectors over several visits found asbestos debris and saw that workers were not following safety precautions, according to the filings. Work was halted in April 2014, three months after Potter’s team began.
Testing estimated that the concentration of asbestos in the debris would not cause “an immediate public health concern,” according to prosecutors, but they said it is “difficult to say there is no long term risk from exposure to low levels of asbestos that might remain in the building.”
The Laramar Group claimed in 2014 to have learned of the asbestos only when the EPA ordered Chelsea Environmental to stop work. But according to the court filings, the company had provided VDOT’s asbestos survey to Potter in 2013 and hired him specifically to deal with the problem.
Laramar, which did not return a request for comment, still owns the apartments. The complex is now called Bridgeyard Old Town.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/contractor-pleads-guilty-to-mishandling-asbestos-in-alexandria-affordable-housing/2019/04/04/b981fcec-5711-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html?utm_term=.9d31ed3368ea
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Judges Nix Second Set of EPA Coolant Regs Under Kavanaugh Ruling
Apr 5, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
Federal appeals court judges struck down in large part the second in a pair of Obama-era rules limiting climate-warming coolants, saying they were bound by the court’s rejection of the first regulation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit must reach the same conclusion as it did in 2017, when it vacated much of the initial Obama-era regulation banning certain hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, the court said in an April 5 ruling.
The chemicals, commonly used as refrigerants, warm the climate at a rate hundreds of times greater than carbon dioxide.
The Environmental Protection Agency in 2015 issued its first regulation banning certain HFCs. In 2016, it adopted a second rule building on those first limits. The move came in the run-up to global talks to reach a deal in late 2016 to phase down the chemicals worldwide.
The panel of D.C. Circuit judges during March 8 oral arguments appeared sympathetic to the arguments of major chemical producers Honeywell International Inc. and the Chemours Co., as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council, in defense of the EPA rules.
But in their brief April 5 opinion, Judges Judith W. Rogers, Robert L. Wilkins, and Harry T. Edwards said they couldn’t run counter to the D.C. Circuit’s 2017 finding that the EPA doesn’t have authority to restrict the use of HFCs under the Clean Air Act. That 2017 ruling was written by Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice.
“At the onset, we note that the prior merits holding binds us, and that we must grant the new petitions if no procedural issues detain us,” the opinion reads.
EPA Declined to Defend
The decision from the D.C. Circuit all but puts the nail in the coffin of Obama-era rules to ban HFCs.
The EPA defended the first of its HFC rules before the D.C. Circuit in oral arguments just after the Trump administration took office.
The agency declined to defend the second of its regulations, agreeing with the 2017 panel that it didn’t have the authority to carry out the HFC program.
The agency has said it is working to address the issues the court pointed to in 2017 but hasn’t offered a timeline for a regulation.
The majority of appliance manufacturers and chemical makers—including Mexichem Fluor Inc. and Arkema Inc., the two that brought the lawsuit against the HFC rules—back the 2016 global deal limiting HFCs.
It isn’t clear whether the Trump administration will back that deal, known as the Kigali Amendment, which would have to be sent to the Senate for ratification.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler recently told House appropriators he hadn’t been asked to weigh in on the Kigali deal yet.
If the deal were to be ratified, it would require legislation to allow the EPA to implement it, Wheeler said during an April 3 budget hearing.
The EPA “currently lacks the authority” it would need to restrict HFCs, he said.
The case is Mexichem Fluor, Inc. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1024, 4/5/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/judges-nix-second-set-of-epa-coolant-regs-under-kavanaugh-ruling
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Court Tosses More HFC Standards
Apr 5, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Federal judges today scrapped another Obama-era effort to crack down on planet-warming gases used in refrigeration and cooling.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated a portion of a 2016 EPA rule aimed at phasing out many uses of hydrofluorocarbons. The judges concluded they were bound by a previous D.C. Circuit decision striking down part of a related 2015 regulation, which focused on other uses.
HFCs are potent greenhouse gases widely adopted in the 1990s as replacements for other substances that harm the ozone layer. But after approving the ozone-friendly HFCs for many uses more than 20 years ago, EPA then sought to replace them with other substitutes that are also climate-safe.
That was an overreach, the D.C. Circuit ruled in 2017. In an opinion authored by then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the court found the Clean Air Act provision at issue authorized EPA to find replacements only for ozone-damaging substances, not climate-damaging ones.
Kavanaugh's ruling — which the Supreme Court declined to review — addressed EPA's 2015 HFC rule. Mexichem Fluor and Arkema SA, which manufacture HFCs, then challenged EPA's expanded 2016 standards on the same grounds.
A three-judge panel ruled today that the expanded standards must suffer the same fate as the first rule.
"At the onset, we note that the prior merits holding binds us, and that we must grant the new petitions if no procedural issues detain us," the court said in an unsigned order, which then rejected procedural arguments made by supporters of the EPA regulation.
The panel included Judges Judith Rogers and Robert Wilkins and Senior Judge Harry Edwards, all appointed by Democratic presidents.
Environmental groups and manufacturers of HFC replacements have argued for leaving the Obama-era standards intact.
In oral arguments last month, they told the D.C. Circuit that while the lawsuit purported to challenge the 2016 rule, it actually represented an attack on the underlying 1994 regulation that governs the replacement approval process — and was therefore filed decades too late (Climatewire, March 11).
Today's ruling is another blow to efforts to reel in the use of HFCs, which are targeted for phaseout around the world under the Kigali Amendment, which the Trump administration has not submitted for Senate approval.
The D.C. Circuit decisions, however, do not prohibit EPA from disapproving the use of HFCs for new applications to replace ozone-depleting substances.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/05/stories/1060144993
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California Publishes Prop 65 Fact Sheet for Rental Properties
Apr 5, 2019 | Chemical Watch
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has published a consumer-facing factsheet about Proposition 65 warnings in apartments and other residential rental properties.
Its purpose is to explain why a rental agreement may contain a Prop 65 warning. And it includes several chemicals listed under the state’s scheme that renters may be exposed to, including: formaldehyde in building materials like insulation, composite wood cabinetry, and wall and flooring products; lead from plumbing materials or paint chips in older buildings, or in vinyl imported mini-blinds from before 1997; and asbestos in ceiling materials of older buildings.
The information is housed on Oehha’s Prop 65 warnings website. August 2016 amendments to how ‘clear and reasonable’ warning should be provided under the law directs companies to include the URL for this site in their warnings.
https://chemicalwatch.com/75988/california-publishes-prop-65-fact-sheet-for-rental-properties
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Is “Proposition 65 Lite” Coming to New York?
Apr 5, 2019 | Lexology
By Dennis E. Raglin
With apologies to Frank Sinatra, start spreading the news…Will we be seeing toxic chemical warnings on consumer products from the Big Apple to Buffalo? If New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gets his way it looks like we will and he can say, “I did it my way”. As part of his January, 2019 Executive Budget, the governor has proposed a toxic chemical warning scheme that contains striking similarities to California’s Proposition 65 law. Proposition 65, enacted in 1986, requires companies doing business in California, including the selling of products to California residents over the Internet, to place warnings on their products (a) if they contain one of hundreds of chemicals listed by the state as causing either cancer or reproductive harm and (b) if the chemicals are present in the products in amounts that are above established safe harbor levels. (California Health & Safety Code section 25249.5, et seq.) The burden is then on the defendant to show it does not expose consumers to chemicals at a level that would require a warning.
1. The Proposal – Identify Chemicals that Require Warnings
The governor’s proposed “Consumer Right to Know Act” would allow the Department of Environmental Conservation to create requirements for chemical warning labels for designated products. The proposal would further require the agency to (a) determine feasibility of on-package labeling (b) develop a list of carcinogens and other chemicals that will require warnings and (c) decide which consumer products will require such warnings. (January 21, 2019 Governor’s Announcement, https://www.governor.ny.gov/news.) This proposal would build upon New York’s “Household Cleaning Product Information Disclosure Program” which requires manufacturers of such products sold in the state to disclose the contents of the products and research concerning their effect on human health and the environment. (Environmental Conservation Law, New York Code of Rules and Regs., tit. 6, Art. 35, Part 659.)
2. The Similarities with Prop 65
This proposal contains similarities to Prop 65. First, it would require a “list” of chemicals that the New York state agency would be mandated to create and maintain. One of the lynchpins of Prop 65 is its chemical list containing about 900 separate chemicals deemed to require warnings. The agency that is responsible for enforcing Prop 65 in California, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), created the list and adds chemicals to it from various sources, including foreign authoritative bodies. This is sometimes frustrating to the business community as OEHHA has added chemicals to this list even when U.S. and other international environmental agencies have concluded that a chemical is not hazardous. This issue is illustrated in pending litigation involving the chemical glyphosate, the main ingredient in the herbicide Round Up. Even before Gov. Cuomo’s proposal Prop 65’s influence has spread to other states. The OEHHA list has been used by other states in their chemical compliance programs, most prominently Maine and Washington State, but has also influenced many others. These states’ laws are focused mainly on children’s’ products but allow the agencies to import and rely of the Prop 65 list of chemicals to populate the states’ lists of “chemicals of concern” which they can choose from and regulate. So, a chemical can be listed and warnings required based on dubious science.
Second, the proposed New York law would vest the responsible agency with the power to enforce the law and impose penalties for failure to comply. If passed, what will the New York warnings be required to look like and what language will be required? Would the New York agency use the wording and appearance requirements set forth for Prop 65? Maybe imitation would be the sincerest form of flattery here as it would be the easiest and most cost effective thing to do. New York would not have to reinvent the wheel when Prop 65 has been in effect for 30 years and has a well-worn, though not universally loved, system in place. In fact, the Prop 65 scheme, including its chemical list, warning regulations, chemical website for consumers and safe harbor levels created and established for many frequently used chemicals could be lifted and dropped into any framework the New York agency might develop.
3. Less Onerous than Prop 65?
New York emulating Prop 65 is not something the business community is cheering. The law has been an expensive and often inefficient exercise for hundreds of companies caught up in its confusing and growing web. For all the money spent on penalties for sometimes picayune products and violations that more often than not do not present a real-world hazard to health, the only winners tend to be not the public but the attorneys who bring the actions on behalf of “bounty hunter” private enforcers. Prop 65 allows notices of violation and litigation to be commenced by either a private enforcer suing in the public’s interest or the state Attorney General. Allowing private enforcers to pursue these actions, and to pursue them against any product from shopping malls to safety pins, has created some very wealthy plaintiffs’ lawyers because it is by far more cost effective for companies to agree to place warnings or reformulate an often already safe product to resolve the matter and avoid more expense of paying a lawyer and experts to prove exposure is safe. Many companies settle and place the warnings as prophylactic measures, contributing to warning fatigue by customers who may tune out all warnings on the product – even important ones that they should read.
This is where the proposal by Gov. Cuomo and Prop 65 diverge, making his proposal “Proposition 65 lite”. Unlike Prop 65 the governor’s proposal does not mention enforcement by a private enforcer; only by the state agency. That is good news because the private enforcer provision of Prop 65 is by far the biggest driver of the law, both as the source of the mountains of violation notices sent each year and of millions of dollars paid annually mainly to attorneys’ fees and costs given the law provides that a company settling or who does not prevail in trial is required to pay the private enforcers’ attorneys’ fees and costs through resolution of the case. While the law also requires payment of penalties based on the number of products sold in California, penalties paid are but a fraction of what goes to the small group of lawyers who represent bounty hunters.
The proposal also limits the products that would be required to carry warnings. That too is a promising contrast with Prop 65. Rather than every product in the state being fair game for bounty hunters, the proposal would vest in the state agency the sole power to determine which products were at issue and subject to warnings requirements. This is similar to another California regulatory scheme – the Safer Consumer Products Act. That is a set of green chemistry regulations that vest in a state agency the ability to identify chemicals and products that will be regulated. (California Health & Safety Code section 25251, et seq.; 22 Cal. Code of Regs. tit 22, Chapter 55, et seq.) While this regulation has been far from perfect, a state agency being in charge of a set amount of products to regulate is much better than the anything goes landscape in Prop 65. It obviously can allow for more certainty to the regulated community and prevent some of the abuse inherent in Prop 65.
4. What Next?
Will tourists be greeted by chemical warnings on their souvenirs when visiting the Big Apple? Will the New York legislature go along with the governor’s proposal? Too soon to tell but the New York legislature has been receptive to consumer protection legislation of late, including considering a consumer privacy bill, among other related issues. That we are at this stage evaluating a further expansion of Prop 65 across the country is obviously of great importance to several industries and individual businesses. We will be monitoring this closely.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=48d0207a-1ccf-4ce8-bfc2-3d452a3f0282
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US NGO Publishes Alternative Paint Strippers Guide
Apr 5, 2019 | Chemical Watch
US NGO Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families has published a list of alternative paint removal products to those containing methylene chloride or N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP).
The organisation cites the "serious health risks" the products pose, and the US EPA’s recent rule to ban methylene chloride paint strippers for consumer uses, as the reasons for developing the guide.
Intended for both consumers and professionals, the guide includes 24 products sold or soon to be available at major retailers. "Our goal in providing these examples was to make the point that safer alternatives are readily available, rather than hypothetical," the NGO said.
To "avoid falling into the trap of regrettable substitution", the SCHF said it excluded products that have ingredients as or more toxic than methylene chloride and NMP. This includes those that received a benchmark score of 1 after evaluation by the Clean Production Action’s (CPA) GreenScreen Assessment, including: methanol; naphthalene; toluene; and xylene.
SCHF was one of the organisations behind a campaign last year to pressure major retailers to phase out the sale of paint strippers containing methylene chloride and NMP. More than a dozen agreed to do so.
https://chemicalwatch.com/75989/us-ngo-publishes-alternative-paint-strippers-guide
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US Government Shutdown Created Food Contact Notification Bottleneck
Apr 5, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
The US Food and Drug Administration's food contact notification (FCN) review process is still playing catch-up after the partial federal government shutdown at the beginning of the year, a recent conference has heard.
FCNs are the primary method that the FDA uses to regulate new food contact additives being brought to market; they require that a manufacturer demonstrates a reasonable certainty of no harm. When a manufacturer submits a notification to the FDA it triggers an automatic review process of 120 days.
But speaking at Chemical Watch’s recent Food Contact Regulations USA event in Washington DC, Dennis Keefe, director of the agency’s food additive safety office, said it is continuing to feel the effects of the 35-day shutdown. FCNs kept coming in while the FDA was shuttered, he said, leaving it unable to start the review process.
According to Mr Keefe, the agency typically responds to around 100 FCNs a year, on a staggered schedule according to when they are submitted. But for each of the submissions received during the shutdown, the FDA began their review period on the day the government reopened. This means that the agency currently has almost 50 FCNs being worked on to roughly the same timeline.
And this bottleneck is presenting concern: "We may not be able to complete our review in 120 days," Mr Keefe said.
Because the agency has no flexibility to extend the length of evaluations, he said, "it may be that some FCNs become effective, and that if we identify safety concerns afterwards, we will have to take some regulatory action to [render them ineffective]."
Under current procedures, however, this is "a very burdensome process" for the FDA, he added.
‘Very vulnerable position’
Mr Keefe pointed out that the FCN process is intended to be non-iterative, with no back-and-forth with submitters. The expectation is that industry submit "complete packages" of information, and the FDA will provide a yes or no answer within 120 days.
Especially now, he said, industry should be very thorough about the safety data submitted. If it is found insufficient, the FDA may issue a recommendation to withdraw the notification entirely.
"Please take this seriously, because there are consequences if you don’t" Mr Keefe warned. "We do not have the capacity at this time to engage in an iterative process with you."
A submitter can withdraw its notification and resubmit it with additional information, he said, and the agency is willing to clarify what data is needed.
"But at this point, we are in a very vulnerable position in terms of responding in a timely manner to these notifications."
Mr Keefe added that because the agency is focused on getting FCNs reviewed, it may be less able to respond to pre-notification consultation (PNC) requests and other pre-submission inquiries.
And he said it could be some time before the agency is back on track: "Assuming these new submissions stay steady at about four or five [a week], we might be able to recover by mid-summer, but more likely by the end of the fiscal year, which is end of September."
https://chemicalwatch.com/75971/us-government-shutdown-created-food-contact-notification-bottleneck
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Bayer and Monsanto Defend Themselves With Science They Funded
Apr 5, 2019 | Truthout
By Janine Jackson
Janine Jackson: The case is called Edwin Hardeman v. Monsanto, which sounds something like David v. Goliath. Hardeman is a 70-year-old man who says using Roundup, Monsanto’s weed killer, for nearly 30 years caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
And Monsanto is, well, Monsanto. Recently acquired by German drug and crop chemicals company Bayer for some $66 billion, the corporate behemoth commands more than a quarter of the combined world market for seeds and pesticides, with a famously active PR machine.
And yet Goliath lost. The jury in US District Court in San Francisco returned the necessary unanimous decision, finding that Roundup caused, or was a substantial factor in causing, Hardeman’s cancer. And that Monsanto should be held liable, because the herbicide is not labeled to warn of that risk.The stories you care about, right at your fingertips
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The company, naturally, is appealing. But with more than 11,000 other cases in the wings, this story isn’t going away anytime soon.
Our next guest has been following this case and others. A longtime food and agriculture journalist at Reuters, Carey Gillam is now research director at US Right to Know, and author of the book Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science, out from Island Press. She joins us now by phone from Kansas. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Carey Gillam.
Carey Gillam: Thanks for having me.
Listeners may remember the case last year in which a California jury found that the use of Roundup by a school groundskeeper, Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, was a substantial factor in his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. But that ruling didn’t make this one a sure thing, or even an expected thing.
I’m noticing that some coverage seems to be taking a line that, as a former federal prosecutor was quoted on one news show, the verdict “proves that juries are being convinced that Roundup is causing cancer.” Another headline was, “A Man Said He Got Cancer After Spraying Monsanto’s Weed Killer. A Jury Agreed.” It makes it sound as though these court decisions are mainly the result of fancy lawyering, or maybe even deception. But Hardeman’s attorneys presented scientific data, just as Monsanto did; it wasn’t based on sympathy-mongering or something, right?
Right. Of course, it is Bayer and Monsanto’s argument, or position, that the science is on their side, that the weight of scientific evidence shows no cancer risk, no carcinogenicity connection to its glyphosate-based herbicides like Roundup. But the evidence tells us otherwise.
And, of course, I’ve written a whole book about it, and talked about it many times. The weight of scientific evidence, published peer-reviewed epidemiology, toxicology, mechanistic data done over multiple years, multiple countries, does indeed show a cancer risk associated with these herbicides, with clear association to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And that’s what caused the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in 2015, to classify glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, as a probable human carcinogen. So there’s a great deal of scientific evidence, and that’s what is convincing juries.
But the second leg of this, or the second part of it, is there’s also a great deal of evidence of Monsanto’s manipulation of the scientific record. So when Monsanto says it has all of this science on its side, well, we know now from internal Monsanto documents, that a lot of that science they point to is science that they paid for, that they wrote, that theyghostwrote, that they manipulated — that they essentially had a hand in creating a safety narrative that really was not true.
It’s interesting, because I think that was why some folks were surprised by the ruling in Hardeman, because the judge, Vince Chhabria, had taken a lot of issue, hadn’t he, with Hardeman’s attorneys presentation of the case? And what he seemed to take particular issue with was lead attorney Aimee Wagstaff’s effort to introduce evidence of just that, of Monsanto’s effort to manipulate regulators, including ghostwritingsafety reviews. And I’m not sure, legally, whether that’s permissible, but it sure sounds relevant to me as a layperson, if the company is then going to rely on that data from those regulators.
Right. Well, what Chhabria did — and this is the federal judge; theJohnson case was in state court — but what he did was really unusual. He threw Monsanto a bone. Monsanto said, “You know what? Let’s just let the jurors hear only about the scientific evidence.”
And so the judge divided the case into two phases. And the first phase was sharply limited to only discussion and presentation of scientific studies to the jurors. And Monsanto thought that they would win that. If the jurors couldn’t know about their ghostwriting and manipulation, they thought that they could win.
But, in fact, they did not. The jurors in that first phase said, after looking at all of the scientific evidence, that the weight of evidence was on the plaintiff’s side. And they found that, yes, it did cause his cancer.
In the second phase of the trial was when they considered damages, and that was when they looked at the manipulation of science, and came back with this $80 million verdict.
Let me just keep you on regulators for a second. When you’re reading press accounts, you see: Bayer/Monsanto flatly deny that glyphosate-based herbicides are carcinogenic, and they cite the Environmental Protection Agency. So in media stories, you get kind of disagreements between institutions, between the World Health Organization, EPA and different groups. What are we to make of the disagreements between various regulatory entities on this?
Well, a couple of different elements to that. So No. 1 is that most of the regulatory agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, only require a large body of evidence about the active ingredients. So in the case of Monsanto’s products, the active ingredient is glyphosate. It is not the only ingredient, but it is the active ingredient. So their studies, that they were required to present to the EPA, was limited to glyphosate.
Now, the products on the store shelves are not glyphosate only; they include surfactants. And scientists around the world who have studiedthe actual formulated products have said that the way that these surfactants interact with glyphosate make it much more toxic than glyphosate by itself.
And Monsanto admits it has never done any long-term studies about these formulated products, and the EPA admits that it’s never required any long-term studies. So the actual products that we’re being exposed to, and that are being used out there, and that these plaintiffs [have] used, have never had any long-term regulatory requirements for carcinogenesis studies. And that is shocking to a lot of people. But that is the fact. So that’s one element.
The other element is, again, the regulators rely primarily on data and information that’s been given to them by the companies that sell the chemicals. And we know, from analysis that’s been done, that studies that are done by companies that profit from those products generally find those products to be safe. Whereas independent analysis and independent research is more likely to find risk, if risk is there. We have to take that into account when they point to the EPA as the all-knowing being that we should rely on.
Right. So it’s about carcinogenicity; it’s also about the right to know. I mean, capitalists talk a good game about choice. But what is choice without information? And the failure-to-warn, I’ve heard, is very important in these cases. But I have to say, I still wonder how much say a farmworker, for example, really has, even if there’s a label on the product. And given the ubiquity of these chemicals in our food, I certainly think the failure-to-warn is critical, but I wonder if there are some things that a label doesn’t cover, if you will.
Yeah, that’s true. The failure-to-warn is a big issue. Now for the users of this who are exposed occupationally, a warning is a big deal. Because if you’re told, “Hey, this could cause cancer,” or, “This is particularly dangerous, you want to make sure that you don’t get it on your skin, and you don’t inhale it. And you wear gloves and long pants and a mask,” that’s going to provide a degree of protection.
And they didn’t do that with this product. They said it’s safe as table salt, safe enough to drink; people are out there in sandals, spraying it. You know, Mr. Hardeman was spraying a backpack sprayer around, with no protective gear. So that’s the deception.
When it’s in the food, you’re not voluntarily consuming food with pesticide residues in them — or maybe you are, most people don’t think about that! That’s a different animal.
But again, if this had been classified differently by our EPA, it would not be allowed to be sprayed directly onto food crops; we wouldn’t have the types of residues that we’re having in food if it had been judged differently by the EPA.
And then I would just note that I know that some of the work is around, not just farmworkers, but farmworkers’ children, who, of course, have different levels of susceptibility from damage from this. So you really have to look at who all is coming in contact with it, and it’s not just necessarily the person spraying it.
Gosh, no, I mean, right. There have been studies where they find this in the urine of farmworkers’ children, even though the children are not out there working in the fields. And our government scientists have found that this chemical, because it’s so widely used, it’s in air samples; you see residues, traces of it, in rainfall; even it’s in the soil. It’s pretty ubiquitous, particularly in farm country.
Well, in the end, Vince Chhabria had some strong — or in the middle, I guess — he actually had some very strong language, in which he said:
There is strong evidence from which a jury could conclude that Monsanto does not particularly care whether its product is in fact giving people cancer, focusing instead on manipulating public opinion and undermining anyone who raises genuine and legitimate concerns about the issue.
That is some pretty strong language. And, I have to say, I read it as a heads-up to the press as well.
CG: Exactly. And he also did say, in that same ruling, that there are “large swaths of evidence,” the scientific evidence, showing that this product could be considered carcinogenic, and that Monsanto’s been trying toignore those large swaths of evidence. So it’s not just the manipulation, it is also the scientific evidence that’s brought these juries, twice now, to these multi-million-dollar verdicts.
Media coverage has taken some familiar turns, talking about the loss for Monsanto and Bayer, as though they were the harmed party here.
But then also, I think, just framing stories around lawsuits and trials affects how we hear them. So when you hear about how Dewayne Johnson was awarded $280 million in damages, and that was later reduced to about $80 million, and $80 million in Hardeman, you have to remember that Monsanto has almost endlessly deep pockets, and, you know, money doesn’t cure cancer. So just speaking of it in terms of, “Oh, they won,” doesn’t really give you an accurate picture of what’s happening here, I don’t think.
Definitely. And I spoke with the plaintiffs attorneys, Aimee Wagstaff and Jennifer Moore, yesterday, and we talked about that. You know, it’s great to say, “We won,” and there’s money, and this cancer victim will get a few dollars.
But it’s really a larger picture and a larger problem in this world, where we’re allowing these companies, a handful of very powerful companies, to really dominate the regulatory system, the political system, food policy matters, agricultural policy, in which we all are just exposed to pesticides and chemicals that can do harm to our health.
And analysts are expecting that a global settlement from Bayer to put an end to all of this litigation might be between $2 and $5 billion. $2 to $5 billion is not going to cripple Bayer, Monsanto’s new owner.
So if people really want to see change, and we really want to have accurate information, to be informed, reporters and others need to start paying attention to the big picture here, and what’s happening to our environment, to our health, and how this company and these revelations in these jury trials, what they mean, what they really mean.
And that’s what I think is more important about these trials, is not who wins or who loses or how much money. I think what’s important is that it puts a spotlight on a really important public policy issue, and brings to light a lot of secret information. Internal Monsanto documents and regulatory documents and scientific studies that the general public has not heard about, 40 years of information that’s finally coming to light in these jury trials.
https://truthout.org/audio/bayer-and-monsanto-continue-to-defend-themselves-with-science-they-funded/
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GOP Congressman Asks for Ga. Exemption, Surprising Greens
Apr 5, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
By Russ Bynum
A Republican congressman who for years has touted the potential benefits of expanded oil drilling off the East Coast is now asking the Trump administration to exclude his home state of Georgia from its offshore energy plans.
Rep. Buddy Carter's district includes the 100-mile Georgia coast. In a letter Wednesday to acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, Carter — a member of the new House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis — reiterated his support for drilling but said his constituents have made it clear they oppose any oil exploration off Georgia's barrier islands and salt marshes.
His letter came the day after state lawmakers in Atlanta approved a resolution against drilling, citing potential risks to coastal tourism and commercial fishing. The GOP-controlled Georgia House passed the measure 125-36.
"Elected representatives of Georgia have voted, and I believe that the federal government should respect the people of Georgia to make this critical decision for themselves," Carter said in the letter. "That is why I write today to request that Georgia be excluded from offshore energy plans until the concerns of the legislature are addressed."
The GOP congressman's request surprised environmental advocates who have tried for years to sway Carter to acknowledge drilling's potential threats to marine life and coastal Georgia's economy.
"Everybody was always afraid their concerns were falling on deaf ears," said Megan Desrosiers, president of the coastal Georgia conservation group 100 Miles. "I'm proud of Congressman Carter for this letter because he's showing he is listening and is willing to set aside his own personal preference for offshore drilling to represent the will of his constituents."
Carter joins a growing list of Georgia officials who want the state's coastline exempted from President Trump's five-year plan to open 90 percent of the nation's offshore oil reserves to private development. Newly elected Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, a Trump ally, has said he also opposes drilling off Georgia.
Carter has been a drilling supporter since expanding drilling off the East Coast was proposed under President Obama. Even after coastal Georgia cities came out against drilling, Carter insisted it had the potential to bring thousands of jobs while helping the U.S. become less dependent on foreign oil.
"This could create more than 5,000 jobs in Georgia and raise over $700 million for the state budget by 2035 with revenue sharing in place," Carter told The Brunswick News in February 2016. In the same interview, he accused "environmental extremists" of making "outrageous claims" about the threat of oil spills.
Paulita Bennett-Martin, Georgia campaign organizer for the conservation group Oceana, said Carter will be an important ally because he's a Georgia Republican who can reach out directly to the Trump White House.
"Buddy Carter knows how to communicate with this administration," Bennett-Martin said. "And I think the way he worded this, he's bringing the message of his constituents forward to the top."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/05/stories/1060144841
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Interior Pursues 1 Mont. Lease Appeal as It Drops Another
Apr 5, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Pamela King
The Interior Department yesterday fired opening shots in its battle to block one Montana oil and gas lease, as the agency moves to drop a related appeal.
Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who hails from Montana, vowed to fight a district court decision reinstating a pair of Reagan-era leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area, a region considered sacred by the Blackfeet Nation.
Interior, now under the leadership of Zinke's former second-in-command, David Bernhardt, this week said it would drop its appeal in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia's ruling on a lease held by the Texas driller W.A. Moncrief (Energywire, April 4).
The department will continue to pursue its fight against revival of a lease held by Louisiana-based Solenex LLC.
"[T]he court's decision fails to recognize that Interior adequately explained the reasons for its decision to cancel the lease notwithstanding the amount of time that has passed since the lease was issued," Interior attorneys argued in a brief filed yesterday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
"Given that the drilling has never proceeded and that Interior's decisions authorizing drilling were timely challenged, any reliance interests were minimal; in any event, Interior's decision took those interests into account."
Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, found for the lower court that the Obama administration's cancellation of the Badger-Two Medicine leases was "arbitrary and capricious" under the Administrative Procedure Act.
"[E]ven if the cancellation were arbitrary," Interior argued yesterday, "the district court lacked authority to order that the lease be reinstated rather than remanding the matter to the agency to reach a reasoned conclusion after undertaking the analysis the court held was lacking."
Interior's appeal in the Solenex lease case remains one of the Trump administration's few attempts to curb fossil fuel development on federal and tribal lands.
Tribal and conservation groups are continuing their appeals of the district court's rulings on both the Moncrief and Solenex leases.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/05/stories/1060144929
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BLM Ends Challenge to Reinstating Montana Oil, Gas Leases
Apr 4, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The Trump administration has voluntarily dropped its appeal of a federal district court's decision to reinstate two oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in northwestern Montana.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/117936-blm-ends-challenge-to-reinstating-montana-oil-gas-leases
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Study: Dispersants Can Cut Chemical Exposure from Spills
Apr 5, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Rob Hotakainen
Using dispersants to reduce the amount of oil at the water's surface after a major spill may benefit both human and marine life, according to a report released today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The study found that dispersants can be an "effective tool" by helping create small oil droplets that may biodegrade more quickly.
"Dispersants can reduce the amount of surface oil, thereby reducing response personnel's potential exposure to hazardous compounds in oil and lessening the extent of surface oil encountered by marine species," said the study, called "The Use of Dispersants in Marine Oil Spill Response."
Each oil spill is unique and dispersants are just one option available to responders, the report said. Other options include mechanically recovering the oil with skimmers and booms and burning the oil. The report urged responders to assess health and environmental risks in evaluating the trade-offs between different options.
"Protecting human health and safety is the first priority when making decisions about oil spill response," the study said.
Two studies on the health effects of dispersants after the Deepwater Horizon spill reported respiratory and skin irritation, but today's study said drawing conclusive results from those studies was hindered by delays in collecting health information.
"These limitations make it difficult to accurately estimate workers' exposure to dispersants and therefore to untangle the effects of dispersants from the effects of oil and of dispersed oil," the study said.
The study is consistent with previous findings from NOAA. The agency said that while dispersed oil particles may be toxic to some marine organisms, they're likely to be exposed for shorter time periods because concentrations of dispersed oil can be more quickly diluted.
The National Academies are private nonprofit institutions that aim to provide independent analysis and advice on issues related to science and technology. The study was done by the Committee on the Evaluation of Chemical Dispersants in Oil Spill Response, sponsored by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, the National Academies' Gulf Research Program, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, EPA, the American Petroleum Institute and Clean Caribbean & Americas.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/05/stories/1060144965
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KMCO Legal Woes Grow as Plant Workers, County File Suit
Apr 5, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Nicole Hensley and Matt Dempsey
Claims of injuries and additional environmental violations against KMCO are mounting after one worker was killed and five more were wounded during an isobutylene-fueled explosion at the Crosby chemical processing plant.
At least three lawsuits — including one from Harris County and two more from employees — have been lodged against the production facility since Tuesday, when a tank leaking the volatile chemical ignited and caused a plume of acrid smoke to rise from the ensuing blaze.
An account of the explosion and the panicked moments that followed was recalled by a lawyer for an 18-year-old contractor who was a month into his first industrial job when he was told to evacuate while installing insulation.
Arturo Martinez and about 20 others were within 100 yards of the tank — and on their way to what he believed was their designated safe zone — when he saw a cloud of gas rising from a tank, attorney Robert Schwartz said. Martinez then watched the metal storage container expand and explode, he said.
Martinez and the others bolted for the evacuation area but a gate at the access point was locked.
“They couldn’t get out,” Schwartz said.
The fence was topped with a strip of barbed wire so Martinez shimmied under the barrier, causing metal to scrape against his back.
“He’s not a big guy but he could barely get under,” the lawyer said. “They lifted the gate as much as they could to help the other men go under.”
More injuries and claims of safety violations
Schwartz argues the gate should never have been locked. The lawsuit and another court filing also accusing the company of negligence has pinned more than a dozen safety violations — which took place before and during the explosion — against the company. The second case was filed on behalf of KMCO boiler maker Randy Villaloboz.
Both suits seek more than $1 million for Martinez and Villaloboz respectively.
A co-worker warned Villaloboz, 32, a married father of three, of the leak before the blast, said Jason Itkin, Villaloboz’s lawyer. The worker was not in Martinez’s group but described an obstacle course-like path during his escape.
“One minute you’re going about your job and the next minute and you hear a loud noise and you’re running for your life,” Itkin said. “He’s pretty shaken up, which is an understatement.”
Both Villaloboz and Martinez have since complained of hearing problems.
The company on Thursday added three more workers to its list of injured, which was initially believed to be the two employees who were airlifted after the explosion Tuesday to the Texas Medical Center. Both remain hospitalized in critical condition, company officials said.
Two more employees were hospitalized Tuesday evening for unspecified medical issues. One has been released while the other remains hospitalized. A third employee went to the hospital on Wednesday morning and was later released. A company spokesman declined to elaborate on the symptoms that led to their hospitalizations.
Martinez and Villaloboz were not believed to be among the five injured workers.
County adds to litigation
KMCO officials have said the worst incidents at the 40-year-old plant happened before they bought the site in 2012, but the new owners have been involved in ongoing litigation with Harris County over several environmental violations since 2013.
The county sued KMCO again Wednesday over state and local environmental law violations, including floodplain and storm water regulations.
In response to the suits, the company issued a statement maintaining it is “100% focused on taking care of our team members and protecting the environment.”
“We will address any legal claims at the proper time and in the proper forum,” the statement read.
The investigation into the explosion — as well as the March 17 fire at the ITC plant in Deer park — has also pitted federal and county agencies against each other.
The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office is fighting with the federal Chemical Safety Board — an independent agency tasked with finding the “root cause” of industrial incidents, for right of jurisdiction over the investigations. The agency does not issue fines or penalties.
The county contends it needs to eliminate criminal activity as a cause before the feds can investigate. CSB officials argue that the longer their presence is delayed, the less effective their investigation is.
“Chemical plants don’t have a black box like airplanes,” CSB investigator Mark Wingard said. “It’s usually a race against time.”
That ticking clock means CSB may not wait for the fire marshal’s investigation.
CSB interim executive authority Kristen Kulinowski said their board may file its own subpoenas and proceed without the county’s permission.
Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office spokeswoman Rachel Moreno said Thursday the county has issued subpoenas related to the ITC and KMCO fires to preserve evidence.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/KMCO-legal-woes-grow-as-plant-workers-county-13743213.php?cmpid=ffcp
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Senate Commerce to Examine Pipeline Safety April 10
Apr 5, 2019 | Politico Pro - Energy Whiteboard
By Anthony Adragna
The Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety will hold a hearing on pipeline safety April 10, according to a committee notice.
Witnesses include Howard “Skip” Elliott, administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. They will also include representatives of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and American Petroleum Institute.
WHAT'S NEXT: The session is scheduled for April 10 at 2:30 p.m. in Dirksen 562.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/04/senate-commerce-to-examine-pipeline-safety-april-10-3024010
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Congress Turns its Attention to Pipeline Safety Act Reauthorization
Apr 4, 2019 | Lexology
The first Congressional Hearing on Pipeline Safety Act Reauthorization for 2019 was held this week before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The Hearing did not have as much drama as last summer’s Hearing before the same Committee, where PHMSA Administrator Skip Elliott was asked sharply to explain why the Agency had failed to fulfill so many Congressional mandates and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Recommendations. In his written testimony at this week’s Hearing, Administrator Elliott stated that “When I spoke [here] last year, I heard clearly from [Committee] members that finalizing outstanding Congressional mandates must be a top priority.” The Committee staff report issued for the Hearing listed 12 “unmet mandates,” and Administrator Elliott’s written testimony conceded that PHMSA yet to address 8 mandates from the 2011 Pipeline Safety Act (PSA) reauthorization, and another 4 from the 2016 PSA reauthorization. Of that dozen outstanding mandates, 4 relate to reports and 8 involve rulemaking. Jennifer Homendy, a member of the NTSB, testified that the NTSB has 24 “open” recommendations to PHMSA, several on the Board’s “most wanted” list for completion. Homendy previously served as the Democratic Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
The Committee questioned Administrator Elliott and other individuals testifying about the status of various rulemakings and the reasons for delay. Administrator Elliott stated that rulemaking is ‘an iterative process, with lots of steps along the way.’ He was challenged on that point by Representative Lipinski (D-Illinois), Chairman of the Subcommittee, who asked Elliott to describe the reasons for delay, and explain why so many people at the Department of Transportation without special expertise in pipelines need to review draft rulemakings. NSTB member Homendy said she believes there should be more transparency in the rulemaking process at PHMSA/DOT, because ‘it is difficult to know where a rulemaking is at with PHMSA, and at what stage in the process.’ PHMSA Administrator Elliott also stated that while the Agency works to complete its Congressional mandates and implement NTSB Recommendations, its “rulemaking efforts are driven by the belief, consistent with Executive Orders 13771, 13777 and 13783 and other legal authorities, that there should be no more regulations than necessary…” and those regulations should be “right sized…to have the maximum safety impact”and encourage greater investment in safety research and technology development. (The Executive Orders noted above were issued in early 2017 as part of the current Administration’s efforts at de-regulation and regulatory reform).
Administrator Elliott also gave updates on three pending rulemakings of significant interest to the public and the regulated community: (1) the Liquids Rule (dating back to the 2011 PSA Reauthorization) was said to be ‘one of PHMSA’s highest priorities,’ with the final rule scheduled to be issued by May 27, 2019; (2) the Gas Transmission Rule ‘has been under review for the past two years,’ and has been split into several smaller rules to speed review and promulgation, the first of which is reportedly scheduled to be issued in final form by July 2, 2019 and focuses on satisfying Congressional mandates; and (3) the Valve and Rupture Detection Rule which is under development to address leak and rupture detection, and is intended to meet two Congressional mandates.
The Administrator also touted PHMSA’s publication of the final Plastic Gas Pipe issued in November 2018 stating that it should advance the replacement of old cast iron and steel pipe prevalent in many distribution pipeline systems. Although not noted by Elliott during the Hearing, PHMSA has at least unofficially suspended enforcement of several aspects of the Plastic Gas Pipe final rule until resolution of a petition for reconsiderationthat was filed by the American Gas Association (AGA) on December 20, 2018.
As expected, Committee members and several testifying panelists noted recent fatality pipeline incidents (Columbia Gas in Massachusetts, Targa in Texas and an Atmos incident). Two of these incidents involved gas distribution lines, while the third occurred on a gas gathering line. Both gathering and distribution lines are clearly under consideration for further statutory amendment. In addition, several testifying panelists stated that PHMSA needs more resources and urged the Agency’s budget to be exempt from further cuts.
In terms of other specific recommendations for reauthorization, NTSB member Homendy stated that one of the Board’s recommendations has been to preclude operators from using direct assessment as a sole means of pipe inspection. NTSB member Homendy and several other witnesses questioned the effectiveness of PHMSA’s integrity management regulations and emphasized the need for more effective leak detection regulations. Referring to Administrator Elliott’s call for de-regulation and regulatory reform and NTSB’s recommendation for more transparency in rulemaking, the Pipeline Safety Trust and independent expert Richard Kuprewicz both urged the Committee to eliminate cost-benefit considerations from PHMSA rulemaking. Andy Black, President and CEO of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines encouraged Congress to allow more pilot programs to demonstrate new technology, noting that regulations often cannot keep up with fast moving technology. The list of other issues under consideration by the Committee in addition to those noted above includes remote control valves, spill response planning and response and coordination with state and local entities.
A Hearing on PSA reauthorization has been scheduled before the Senate Commerce Committee for April 10, 2019 at 2:30 p.m. The House Energy & Commerce Committee is expected to hold a Hearing later in April or in May. No draft bills have yet been circulated.
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ec782a85-2e2e-4972-979f-cd5266aec6d2
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The Energy 202: Young People Take Center Stage at New House Climate Committee's First Hearing
Apr 5, 2019 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
If any single group is responsible for the recent wellspring of debate in Congress over climate change, it is the young activists who occupied the office of soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just days after Democrats won back the chamber in November.
Five months later, a special climate committee impaneled by Pelosi made a tacit acknowledgment of young people’s political power on the issue by holding a hearing Thursday on what it dubbed “Generation Climate.”
For the first hearing of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, lawmakers invited teenagers and 20-somethings to testify about how global warming is affecting them, their friends and their families.
“This is a time for all of us to come together,” said Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), the committee’s chairwoman. “All generations, all political persuasions.”
The witnesses included Chris J. Suggs, an activist and University of North Carolina sophomore from eastern North Carolina, and Lindsay Cooper, a recent college graduate and policy analyst for Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), who are both from regions recently pelted with intense hurricanes and subsequent flooding.
They also include Aji Piper, one of 21 plaintiffs, now ages 10 to 21, in a high-profile case against the federal government for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by promoting fossil fuels and forcing them later in life to live in a warming world.
“Like youth who have come before us in the civil rights movement and other social justice movements,” Piper told lawmakers, “it is often the young among us that shine the light on systems of injustice.”
Democrats held the hearing as lawmakers are preparing for the 2020 election. Turnout among young people will be key to Democrats’ chances of retaking the White House or Senate, and retaining the House.
It also comes as students across dozens of U.S. states last month skipped school to protest inaction in addressing the causes or effects of climate change.
The hearing, however, did not bring clarity to what the sort of proposals the climate committee will produce going forward. Castor has not announced the topic of the next hearing.
However, in an indication of how Democrats want to double down on the climate issue even after the recent defeat of the Green New Deal in the Senate, Castor said her committee will hold field hearings outside Washington in the future.
Unlike other environmental committees in the House, such as the Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources panels, the committee on the climate crisis is purely fact-finding. The other committees deal with actual legislation. This year, other committees have held more than a dozen hearings on various facets of climate change.
In fact, one of Castor’s own bills — to prevent the United States from withdrawing from the Paris climate accord — was advanced out of the Energy and Commerce Committee this week.
House Republicans accused Democrats of ramming through that legislation, formally introducedjust at the end of March, without any hearings despite promises from Democrats to return to regular order.
“The committee did not hold a single hearing on the details and effect of the legislation,” Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.), top Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said during a hearing. “Stakeholders have not had the ability to weigh in on the impacts of this bill.”
Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), a high-ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce panel, countered that Castor’s bill committing the country to the Paris agreement was a “straightforward issue.”
“There was a push to move forward aggressively because we lost 10 years,” he added in an interview Thursday. “We lost a lot of time.”
Still, at least some Republicans, who collectively have been reluctant or outright hostile to having discussions about climate change in the past, have been more open this Congress to addressing the issue.
That shift was on display at Thursday’s hearing.
“We have an opportunity to make progress on this issue,” said the top Republican on the select climate panel, Garret Graves (La.), while emphasizing the loss of coastline in his state and his desire for “logical solutions.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/04/05/the-energy-202-young-people-take-center-stage-at-new-house-climate-committee-s-first-hearing/5ca6466e1b326b0f7f38f31c/?utm_term=.eb91181c9ad4
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New Chief of California’s EPA Targets Air Pollution
Apr 5, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Emily C. Dooley
Jared Blumenfeld was curious about California’s Imperial County and the border region, so he visited the area—before the state Senate confirmed him as the state’s EPA chief.
Locals told him about untreated waste flowing into the U.S., about how Sacramento-based border staff need to be closer to the issues, and about the problems of getting adequate sampling in communities near hazardous waste sites. They also discussed how California cars that failed exhaust tests were driven into Mexico and were now belching plumes of dark smoke there and across the border.
That conversation caught his attention. Since he was confirmed as head of California’s Environmental Protection Agency, Blumenfeld has talked about establishing a cross-border strike force to look into the pollution wrought by 80,000 such California cars.
“They’re all caught up in the same dynamic, which is they want their air clean,” Blumenfeld told Bloomberg Environment.
Boots on the Ground
Supporters say the trip is indicative of Blumenfeld’s style as a boots-on-the-ground manager who wants to dig into issues, and solve them collaboratively.
He is also decisive, as in the smoggy cars situation, said Luis Olmedo, executive director of the environmental justice group Comite Civico Del Valle based in Imperial county.
Olmedo helped show Blumenfeld around the region and was struck that he didn’t travel with an entourage, and seemed dedicated to finding solutions. It was a marked difference from past experiences, especially with the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control—an agency Blumenfeld now oversees and is restructuring.
“He expressed disappointment and was apologetic for things that hadn’t been done,” Olmedo said. “The community feels this is a new secretary that can make things happen.”
Record of Innovation
Blumenfeld won Senate approval March 25 on a 32-3 vote to succeed Matthew Rodriguez, who had served under former Gov. Jerry Brown (D). Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office called Blumenfeld “one of America’s most innovative environmental leaders” when announcing his selection.
He and Newsom have a history: From 2001 to 2009, Blumenfeld was the director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, helping the then-mayor institute mandatory recycling and composting policies and a ban on plastic bags.
Blumenfeld left to become the U.S. EPA’s regional administrator in the Pacific Southwest from 2009 to 2016, under President Barack Obama. In that role, he pushed for California to properly use federal funds for water projects. He also arranged for water quality work to be moved from the Department of Public Health to the State Water Resources Control Board.
Climate Change Challenge
Blumenfeld said the hardest part of the CalEPA job will be meeting goals to minimize the impact of climate change, like cutting greenhouse gases.
“Each of these things is going to get more difficult,” Blumenfeld said. “With each passing year, the impacts of climate changes are going to be more and more severe.”
He is also no stranger to environmental advocacy and education.
In the 1990s, he served as executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council and then as habitat protection director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. He now has a podcast called Podship Earth, where he’s talked about topics as diverse as plastic pollution, nail salon chemicals, and arctic dust. The first guest was former EPA Secretary Gina McCarthy.
‘Balance of Perspectives’
Opponents of Blumenfeld said his history is bad for California businesses.
“The California EPA too often takes an activist approach to government regulation that disregards the impact on jobs and the economy,” Sen. Mike Morrell (R), who voted against his appointment, said in a statement. “There needs to be a better balance of perspectives at the agency.”
Sen. Brian Jones (R), who is vice chair of the Natural Resources and Water Committee, also voted against Blumenfeld, saying he could serve 12 months before needing senate approval. Two months isn’t enough time to decide on a candidate’s track record so he looked at Blumenfeld’s past jobs.
“These positions enabled Blumenfeld to pursue the global warming crusade, which unfortunately often comes at the expense of blue collar and middle class families struggling to pay their electricity, gasoline, and grocery bills every month,” Jones said in a statement.
Toxics Agency Challenges
Blumenfeld can also be blunt, calling the Department of Toxic Substances Control an agency in crisis that couldn’t even reconcile its own budgets.
“There’s been years of neglect in that agency,” he said. “It’s a really important job because people who have hazardous waste sites in their communities that need to be cleaned up have anxiety about that.”
That acknowledgment and a visit from Blumenfeld gave Melissa Bumstead hope. She and others have pushed for a rigorous cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a site for rocket testing and nuclear energy research from 1948 to 2006 that left contaminated soil, bedrock, and water.
Bumstead founded the Facebook page Parents against Santa Susana Field Laboratory and started a Change.org petition to force the issues after her nine-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. The community near the site has felt left out and ignored.
‘Complete Turnaround’
“One of the first things he said is, ‘We need more transparency,” Bumstead said. “There is a complete turnaround since Newsom appointed Jared. There’s been a complete change in tone.”
Blumenfeld toured the Simi Valley site recently. He said he will press the Department of Energy and NASA to stick to cleanup agreements that both agencies are currently backing away from.
His big focus will be on environmental justice all around the state, from air pollution and dirty water to Superfund sites. He noted that policymakers need to listen to communities, especially disadvantaged ones that often bear the highest burden of environmental pollution.
“Making sure that their voice is heard when it comes to future environmental decisions, I think, will be really important,” he said.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/new-chief-of-californias-epa-targets-air-pollution
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News Democrats Push to Stay in Paris Climate Deal: BGOV Closer Look
Apr 5, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith, Tiffany Stecker, and Adam M. Taylor
The U.S. would remain part of the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change under a bill (H.R. 9) approved April 4 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
On June 1, 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the nonbinding accord. Under the terms of the agreement, no country can withdraw before Nov. 4, 2020.
“The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production,” Trump said in his announcement.
President Barack Obama used his executive authority to join the agreement in September 2016. Because he treated the accord as an executive agreement rather than a treaty and didn’t submit it to the Senate for ratification, Trump has discretion to cancel U.S. participation in the deal.
The bill would prohibit the use of federal funds to take actions to remove the U.S. from the accord.
The measure also would require the White House to submit to Congress a plan for the U.S. to meet its voluntary commitments under the Paris Agreement and to use the deal’s transparency provisions to hold other countries accountable for meeting their commitments.
“It was with America’s leadership and engagement that so many nations committed to climate action in the international Paris Agreement,” said Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), the bill’s sponsor and chairwoman of the House Climate Crisis Committee, at a March 27 press event announcing the bill. “Despite what President Trump has said, America cannot and will not retreat. We will keep our commitments to fight the climate crisis.”
Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement was negotiated in 2015 by representatives of 195 countries to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. It was signed on April 22, 2016, and took effect on Nov. 4, 2016.
As of March 28, 185 countries had approved the deal, including the U.S., Brazil, China, India, Japan, and Russia.
The agreement calls for actions to keep global temperatures within 2 degrees Celcius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of preindustrial levels. It asks signatories to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees and to reach the “global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible.” It also recognized that developing countries may reach that peak later than more developed economies.
Each country that signed the agreement agreed to “nationally determined contributions,” nonbinding commitments to reduce their domestic greenhouse gas emissions over time. There’s no penalty if the reductions aren’t accomplished on schedule.
The U.S. pledged to reduce emissions by 26 percent from 2005 levels by 2025 and to “make best efforts” to reduce emissions by 28 percent.
The Paris Agreement established different standards for developed and developing countries, saying that more advanced economies should “take the lead” with economywide emissions targets defined in absolute terms, while less-developed states should enhance their existing “mitigation efforts.”
The accord also set up a transparency framework to provide information on countries’ emissions and progress toward their commitments. It includes technical expert review of information shared under the framework. Developed countries would also have to share information on their financial and other support to help emerging economies address climate change.
Environmental Groups Back Bill
Environmental groups including the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Environmental and Energy Study Institute, and World Wildlife Fund applauded the measure as a strong opening steps to comprehensive climate action.
“This legislation recognizes that the Paris Agreement is a critical pathway for tackling the climate crisis, increasing global cooperation, and amplifying and complimenting vital climate action legislation,” Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement.
Industry Split on Agreement
Most energy companies called for the U.S. to remain a part of the deal before Trump’s announcement.
Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and BP Plc endorsed the deal along with liquefied natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy Inc. and coal producers Cloud Peak Energy Inc. and Peabody Energy Corp., Bloomberg News reported at the time.
Energy companies without significant gas production that could benefit from greater international demand quietly opposed the Paris deal, and the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil industry trade group, didn’t take a formal position, according to the report.
Robert E. Murray, founder and CEO of the coal company Murray Energy Corp., pushed for U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, which he said was “just a way for other countries to get American money.”
Conservatives Pushed WithdrawalSeveral groups including the Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute supported Trump’s decision to withdraw from the accord.
“Paris was the open door for egregious regulation, cronyism, and government spending that would have been as disastrous for the American economy as it is proving to be for those in Europe,” Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation wrote in 2017.
Republicans in the Senate also supported the move. Staying in the agreement would make rolling back Obama-era environmental rules more difficult and invite litigation under the Clean Air Act, according to a May 2017 letter from 22 Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), calling for withdrawal.
Next Steps
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said leadership is pushing to bring H.R. 9 to the floor during the first week of May, Bloomberg Environment reported.
Pallone’s panel approved the bill 29-19, along party lines, on April 4. The measure had 71 original cosponsors, all of them Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi(D-Calif.).
The measure was also referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which held a hearing on climate change April 2 but hasn’t marked up the bill. Castor’s Climate Crisis panel doesn’t have authority to mark up legislation.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/democrats-push-to-stay-in-paris-climate-deal-bgov-closer-look
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