Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - April 12, 2019
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(ACC Mentioned) Explore Fire Suppression Market Is Expected to Surpass $16 Billion by 2024
Apr 12, 2019 | WhaTech
By Vinayak Shinde
Global Market Insights has released a new research study on Fire Suppression market Analysis 2019-2024 inclusive of one or more factors covering regional opportunities, application landscape, product demand trends, and end-use... -
(ACC Mentioned) ICIS Launches Recession Watch Web Page
Apr 11, 2019 | ICIS
Since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, worldwide economies have had one of their longest periods of expansion. However, macro risks are rising on multiple fronts. Here we track key leading economic indicators, including... -
(ACC Mentioned) A $40-Million Michigan Election That Was Inexpensive In Comparison To Other States
Apr 11, 2019 | Michigan Campaign Finance Network
While campaign finance records fell like dominos during Michigan’s 2018 election, the state’s U.S. Senate race was a different story. Democrat Debbie Stabenow won re-election against Republican John James in a contest that attracted... -
What to Watch as the Texas Legislature Takes up Climate, Energy, Water and More
Apr 12, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Kate Zerrenner
We’re past the midpoint of the Texas legislative session and the bill filing deadline is behind us. Because the legislature only meets for five months every other year, there’s a lot to accomplish in a short span. Now, as things pick... -
EPA Announces Proposed Procedures for Review of CBI Claims for the Identity of Chemicals on the TSCA Inventory
Apr 12, 2019 | JD Supra
On April 10, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed rule regarding its plan to review certain confidential business information (CBI) claims to protect the specific chemical identities of substances on the... -
Guest View: Montana Needs a Complete Asbestos Ban
Apr 12, 2019 | Montana Standard
By Linda Reinstein
The deadly legacy of asbestos has cost Montanans dearly. Montana’s Senators, Jon Tester and Steve Daines, know all too well how the scourge of asbestos has savaged the beautiful town of Libby. More than 400 residents have died... -
(ACC Mentioned) IRIS' High-Profile Chief To Be Shifted To New Role Under ORD Reorganization
Apr 12, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Tina Bahadori, chief of the EPA research center that oversees its influential Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, is slated to be shifted to a new role as part of the Office of Research and Development's (ORD) reorganization... -
After VT. Water Agreement, N.Y. Mayor Eager for Solution
Apr 12, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
The mayor of a New York community that has been looking for a solution to the chemical contamination of its water supply says he's glad a permanent solution has been reached to a similar problem in nearby Bennington, Vt. -
California Publishes Prop 65 Webpage on Styrene
Apr 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has published a Proposition 65 webpage with information on styrene. The substance – widely used in the production of polystyrene plastics and resins, synthetic... -
Judge Orders Bayer to Pursue Talks in Roundup Cancer Litigation
Apr 12, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joel Rosenblatt
A U.S. judge ordered Bayer AG to pursue mediation with plaintiffs claiming that its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, asking the company to try to settle lawsuits that have wreaked havoc on its share price. More than 11,200 people have... -
Are Toxic Chemicals Making You Sicker, Fatter and Poorer? an Interview with Dr. Leo Trasande on His New Book
Apr 12, 2019 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Mike Schade
Dr. Leo Trasande is a leading voice in public health policy and a top environmental medicine scientist. In a newly published book, he reveals the alarming truth about how hormone-disrupting chemicals like phthalates and flame... -
ATSDR Report Confirms Glyphosate Cancer Risks
Apr 11, 2019 | Natural Resource Defense Council
By Jennifer Sass
This week a public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), released the long-awaited Draft Toxicological Profile for Glyphosate. And, it... -
So It Turns out That Puberty Could Be Occurring Earlier Due to Our 'Toxic Burden'
Apr 12, 2019 | Glamour
By Christobel Hastings
With the rising trend for natural, organic, fair trade and vegan beauty, many of us are clearing out our makeup bags to ensure our favourite cosmetics are kind on our skin - and good to the planet. But, if we're to take a 360 wellness... -
Chevron Buys Anadarko in $33 Billion Bet on Shale Oil, LNG (3)
Apr 12, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kimberly Yuen
Chevron Corp. agreed to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in a $33 billion bet on the Permian shale-oil region and liquefied natural gas, intensifying a battle with Exxon Mobil Corp. to be America’s top energy company. -
Chevron-Anadarko Deal Shows Why Natural Gas Is Big Oil’s Future
Apr 12, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christine Buurma and Alix Steel
Chevron Corp.’s $33 billion deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. underscores how Big Oil is increasingly becoming Big Gas. The acquisition includes the massive Mozambique LNG project, which would become the country’s first... -
The Energy 202: Here's How Republicans Want to Address a Water Law That's Choking New Pipelines
Apr 12, 2019 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
One of President Trump's biggest energy-related goals is to build more pipelines before he leaves office. But Republicans are concerned the way a piece of half-century-old water pollution law is being used is thwarting those efforts. -
Funding Set for Indiana Plastics-To-Fuel Plant
Apr 11, 2019 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
Brightmark Energy LLC now has financing in place for a commercial scale plastics-to-fuel plant in Indiana. The San Francisco-based company has closed on $260 million in financing, including $185 million in Indiana green bonds... -
Moody's: Gas Pipeline Shortages Will Hamper Permian Producers Through 2020
Apr 12, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The lack of natural gas pipelines from the booming Permian Basin will hinder oil producers in the region at least deep into 2020, according to a new report from Moody's Investor Service. Record-high crude oil production from the... -
Chamber’s GEI: US Voters Favor Energy Innovation over Regulation
Apr 12, 2019 | Oil & Gas Journal
By Nick Snow
Most US voters prefer a national energy strategy that recognizes and improves technologies that already have contributed to the country’s emissions reductions in the last 10 years to policies that are centered on expanded... -
Ewire: Wheeler Blasts Democratic States on Energy Issues
Apr 12, 2019 | Inside EPA
EPA chief Andrew Wheeler is blasting the actions of several high-profile Democratic governors on energy and environment issues, charging that they are playing politics or acting beyond their authority when blocking gas and coal... -
Safety Advocates Warn Against Trump's LNG `Bomb Train'
Apr 12, 2019 | Supply Chain Brain
President Donald Trump wants to allow natural gas to be shipped in railroad cars, a move that would open new markets hungry for the fuel but could risk catastrophic accidents if one were to derail. Trump on Wednesday ordered... -
Latest EPA Climate Pollution Data Shows Disturbing Lack of Progress
Apr 12, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Erica Morehouse
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday reported that that the US made essentially no progress on climate pollution — an insignificant drop of 0.5% — even as scientists warn that without major reductions in emissions, global... -
Emissions Fell a Half-Percent in 2017 — EPA
Apr 12, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell by a half-percent during President Trump's first year in office, according to EPA's final analysis for 2017. That included a 4.25% drop in the power sector, coinciding with a 1.2% increase in...
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(ACC Mentioned) Explore Fire Suppression Market Is Expected to Surpass $16 Billion by 2024
Apr 12, 2019 | WhaTech
By Vinayak Shinde
Global Market Insights has released a new research study on Fire Suppression market Analysis 2019-2024 inclusive of one or more factors covering regional opportunities, application landscape, product demand trends, and end-use portfolio of the industry over the forecast timeframe. The report also outlines the competitive framework of the Fire Suppression industry detailing the SWOT analysis and market share dominance of the prominent players.
Rapid industrialization across developing economies along with increasing demand for safety equipment will drive the global fire suppression market. Ongoing investments across Asia-Pacific and Africa towards the expansion of industrial, commercial and residential establishments will boost the product demand.
As per Central Banks and Governments’ statistics bureau, investments across Asia Pacific for the development of Industrial sector was USD 10.6 billion in 2016.
Growing awareness toward the adoption of fire protection systems to mitigate the hazards and accidents will foster the fire suppression market share.
Introduction of green buildings in Europe coupled with stringent safety regulations will fuel the business growth. As per European Commission, 70,000 people are hospitalized due to severe injuries caused by fire with an estimated damage of USD 148.6 billion every year.
Stringent government regulations towards public safety along with growing consumer awareness will drive the fire suppression market size. Growing commercial floorspace along with introduction of safety codes and standards will stimulate the product penetration.
As per American Chemistry Council, the fire codes set by NFPA and IFC states that all areas with upholstered furniture including healthcare facilities and educational institutes must have sprinkler system installed.
U.S. is projected to reach over annual installation of 150 million units by 2024. Upsurge in construction industry along with technological advancement in the product design and development will embellish the U.S.
fire suppression market share. Increasing demand for environment friendly, less toxic, automatic and new generation systems will propel the product growth. In 2016, the country construction industry continued its rebound with 5.3% with another 2% expected increase by the end of 2017.
Germany fire suppression market is set to experience substantial growth on account of enhancement and improvisation of safety standards. As per European Commission, in Germany, any office or residential building with height of over 60 m must be provided with two stair cases as a safety exit and a sprinkler system must be installed to meet the safety standards.
China fire suppression market is set to witness growth over 3% by 2024. Expansion of industrial and commercial sector along with growing measures to reduce the fire accidents will positively influence the business landscape.
In 2015, China surpassed the U.S. as the world’s major safety and security products market with an annual rise of 10.8%.
Saudi Arabia fire suppression market in 2016 was valued over 150 million. Ongoing O&G projects along with expansion and establishment of other available industries will boost the demand for suppression systems.
In 2015, number of operating industrial units have reached up to 7,007 with the investment of USD 290 billion.
Notable players in global fire suppression market include TYCO, United Technologies Corporation, Minimax, Lubrizol, Bristol Fire Engineering, Halma PLC, SFFECO, Firetronics, NAFFCO, Master Fire Preventions Ltd., National Fire Equipment Ltd. and Amerex Corporation.
Company about: Global Market Insights Inc. is a global market research and management consulting company catering to leading corporations, non-profit organizations, universities and government institutions. Our main goal is to assist and partner organizations to make lasting strategic improvements and realize growth targets. Our industry research reports are designed to provide granular quantitative information, combined with key industry insights, aimed at assisting sustainable organizational development.
https://www.whatech.com/market-research/materials-chemicals/588027-fire-suppression-market-is-expected-to-surpass-16-billion-by-2024
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(ACC Mentioned) ICIS Launches Recession Watch Web Page
Apr 11, 2019 | ICIS
Since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, worldwide economies have had one of their longest periods of expansion. However, macro risks are rising on multiple fronts. Here we track key leading economic indicators, including those specific to the chemicals sector, to alert you to important shifts in trends that could lead to the next recession.
See views from our wide bench of ICIS chemical market experts, from John Richardson, Nigel Davis, Will Beacham, Joseph Chang, Al Greenwood and more. Plus Paul Hodges, chairman of International eChem, weighs in.
The manufacturing PMIs (Purchasing Managers’ Indexes) are a key leading indicator of manufacturing activity. Here we track the key regions of the US, Eurozone and China. Any reading over 50 indicates expansion, while under 50 indicates contraction.
Europe is showing profound weakness, with a March reading of 47.5 - the lowest level since April 2013. China has rebounded to 50.8, now in expansion territory after two months in contraction. The US is still at healthy levels with a higher PMI of 55.3.
The ICIS Petrochemical index tracks the movement of 12 major petrochemicals and polymers: ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, toluene, paraxylene (PX), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), styrene, polystyrene (PS), methanol and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with the regional indexes weighted by capacity.
The Global IPEX edged higher in March as oil price rises in February fed through into contract prices for olefins and aromatics in northwest Europe. The Northwest Europe IPEX was up 2.81% as a result while the indexes in other regions marked time.
The ITC storage terminal fire in the US in mid March had a major impact on aromatics prices, toluene particularly, with some knock-on effect in Europe.
Price increases in March were driven by:
• Fire at a major terminal in Deer Park, Texas, disrupted aromatics markets and other product markets later due to Houston Ship Channel congestion
• Northwest Europe benzene prices up largely on higher crude prices and re-stocking
Price decreases in March were driven by:
• Northeast Asia down on ample supply
• US ethylene down on lower ethane and butane prices
• US propylene down on supply length. Strong production from crackers processing heavier natural gas liquids (NGLs)
The American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB) is a leading macroeconomic indicator to highlight the peaks and troughs in the overall US economy and illuminate potential trends in market sectors outside of chemistry. The barometer is a critical tool for evaluating the direction of the US economy.
The CAB rose 0.1% in March on a three-month moving average basis, the first gain in five months. On a year-over-year basis, the CAB was down 0.3%.
“The CAB continues to indicate gains in US commercial and industrial activity through mid-2019, but at a markedly slower rate of growth, as measured by year-earlier comparisons,” said Kevin Swift, chief economist at ACC.
International eChem’s Volume Proxy is a leading indicator tracking changes in chemical and polymer spot prices to anticipate volume trends. While most chemicals trade is conducted on a contract basis, changes in overall demand have a leveraged impact on spot demand, and thus spot prices.
Companies should have been rebuilding stock after end-year destocking - especially given that the oil price has risen by nearly a third since its year-end lows,” said Paul Hodges, chairman of International eChem. Stock-building should also have been supported in Europe by the prospect of 2019 being a major year for maintenance shutdowns and Brexit. Yet in reality, the outcome has disappointed, confirming our sense of significant weakness in downstream industries.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2019/04/11/10347540/icis-launches-recession-watch-web-page
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(ACC Mentioned) A $40-Million Michigan Election That Was Inexpensive In Comparison To Other States
Apr 11, 2019 | Michigan Campaign Finance Network
While campaign finance records fell like dominos during Michigan’s 2018 election, the state’s U.S. Senate race was a different story.
Democrat Debbie Stabenow won re-election against Republican John James in a contest that attracted about $40 million overall, according to an analysis of independent spending reports and candidate fundraising disclosures. The total may seem like a large one, but it wasn’t when compared to other competitive U.S. Senate contests in the year 2018.
Michigan’s U.S. Senate race was among the 10 closest nationally, but it wasn’t among the 10 most expensive. The 10 most expensive races all attracted at least $66 million in total independent spending and general election and primary candidate spending, according to tracking by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Even Michigan’s last Senate race in 2014 was more expensive than the 2018 race. The 2014 race attracted about $58.5 million overall, including $36.3 million in spending by groups acting outside of the candidates’ campaigns. While that race was for an open seat, Democrat Gary Peters defeated Republican Terri Lynn Land by 13 percentage points.
Stabenow beat James, a military veteran and businessman from Farmington Hills, by only 6 percentage points.
Across the primary and general election, the 2018 race saw only about $5.1 million in independent spending — spending to influence the race that’s not coordinated with the candidates. That’s 14 percent of the independent spending in Michigan’s 2014 race.
It’s also much less than what other states attracted in 2018. Florida’s U.S. Senate race — the most expensive nationally — saw incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson lose to Republican then-Gov. Rick Scott and spurred about $92.8 million in outside spending, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Where Did The Money Come from?
For the election cycle, Stabenow’s campaign reported raising $17.8 million and reported spending $17.2 million. Of the fundraising total, $4.0 million came from political action committees (PACs), according to her filings with the Federal Election Commission.
At the federal level, PACs could directly give a candidate up to $5,000 per election ($5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election). Among the many PACs that gave $10,000 to Stabenow were the United Auto Workers, Delta Dental, Morgan Stanley, the American Hospital Association and the National Education Fund for Children & Public Education.
The independent spending to benefit Stabenow was dominated by advertisements early in the campaign from the nonprofit American Chemistry Council, which spent $571,700 on pro-Stabenow ads that aired in 2017, according to disclosures.
A PAC called the Progressive Turnout Project ($33,1010), the AFL-CIO Political Education Treasury Fund ($22,844) and the Humane Society Legislative Fund ($13,270) spent independently to benefit Stabenow.
As for James, his campaign directly raised $12.5 million and spent $11.3 million. PACs gave $375,144 of that total, according to his disclosures.
James was more heavily backed by independent spenders acting outside of his campaign than Stabenow. They spent $4.5 million across the primary and general elections to boost his chances. While there are limits on how much candidates can raise from specific sources, many independent spenders can raise unlimited amounts from donors.
A super PAC called ESAFUND, formerly known as Ending Spending Action, spent $1.1 million to benefit James. Its top donors over 2017 and 2018, according to disclosures, were Marlene Ricketts, whose spouse, Joe Ricketts, is the former CEO of TD Ameritrade, at $1.5 million and casino moguls Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, at $2.0 million. West Michigan businessman Dan DeVos also gave $300,000, according to disclosures.
Another super PAC called Outsider PAC backed James in both the primary and general elections. It spent about $857,875 to support James or to criticize his opponents. The PAC’s top donors were Illinois businessman RIchard Uihlein, who gave $200,000, Donald Foss, chairman of Credit Acceptance Corporation, who gave $100,000, and attorney Sean Cotton, who gave $100,000. Members of the DeVos family combined to chip in $100,000 as well.
The PAC officially formed in May 2018, three months before the primary election.
Money In The Primary RaceOf the $4.5 million in outside spending that benefited James, about $459,000 went to his primary election race against self-funding businessman Sandy Pensler of Grosse Pointe, according to disclosures.
Among the biggest spenders were Outsider PAC and the Senate Conservatives Fund.
The Outsider PAC reported $346,500 in independent expenditures aimed at either supporting James or opposing Pensler. A PAC called the Senate Conservatives Fund reported spending $95,109 to support James in the primary. The PAC says it “seeks to bring bold conservative leadership to Washington.”
Pensler’s campaign raised and spent $5.2 million with $5.0 million coming from Pensler himself. The campaign was one of the most active TV advertisers in Michigan before the primary.
James got 54.6 percent of the vote in the primary while Pensler got 45.3 percent.
http://mcfn.org/node/7208/a-40-million-michigan-election-that-was-inexpensive-in-comparison-to-other-states
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What to Watch as the Texas Legislature Takes up Climate, Energy, Water and More
Apr 12, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Kate Zerrenner
We’re past the midpoint of the Texas legislative session and the bill filing deadline is behind us. Because the legislature only meets for five months every other year, there’s a lot to accomplish in a short span.
Now, as things pick up steam we’ll see which bills move forward and which don’t. A bill needs to be heard in committee to have any chance of passing (here’s a helpful primer on the legislative process), and less than a month remains until the House starts reporting bills out of committee. The clock is ticking.
Although most bills won’t make it across the finish line, here are a few related to climate, energy and water that warrant a closer look.
Climate: a break from the past and an eye to the future
This Session marks a noted uptick in bills that directly target climate change. The previous five sessions from 2009 to 2017 saw a total of 21 bills filed on climate change, while nearly a dozen have been filed this session alone.
These bills are unlikely to pass, but they indicate that more legislators are willing to take bold action, especially given that post-Harvey, more people are talking about climate change in Texas than ever before.
In addition to refiles we’ve covered in past sessions (Eric Johnson’s HB 100 and Rafael Anchia’s HB 928 and 942), several other climate bills are notable, including two urging the Texas congressional delegation and the U.S. Congress to act on climate change. HCR 15by Richard Raymond urges Congress to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of and to address climate change risks, and HR 776 by Gina Hinojosa urges the Texas congressional delegation to support bipartisan climate action. These are worthy messages to send, even if they don’t succeed.
Other climate bills include HB 3023 by Mary González, which would require Texas A&M University to study the future effects of climate change and strategies to prepare for them. SB 2069 by José Menéndez, like HB 100, would require state agencies to develop climate adaptation plans – a necessary step, as we’re already seeing the impacts of climate change in Texas. Neither of these bills have been scheduled for a hearing, and judging by previous sessions they would face slim odds of being voted out of committee.
That so many climate bills have been filed by so many different legislators is a hopeful sign that the conversation is advancing and concrete action could follow.
TERP: this looks familiar
Over 30 pieces of legislation relating to the Texas Emissions Reduction Program (TERP) have been filed. TERP, established in 2001, provides grants to reduce emissions from polluting vehicles and equipment in areas that struggle with air pollution.
In every session, the legislature grapples with how much to appropriate and spend for TERP, and this one is no exception. At this point, the budget bill contains funding at the same level as last year and bills to continue fees that fund the program beyond current deadlines are moving through the legislative process. SB 531 by Brian Birdwell and José Rodríguez passed out the Senate on April 11th and now needs to work its way through the House, and has several companion bills at the ready if for some reason this one doesn’t move.
Clean Energy: the good and the bad
As expected, there is a mixed bag of clean energy bills this session. Among the good bills are two by César Blanco: one directs a feasibility study for setting the statewide renewable energy goal at 50 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050 (HB 2148 by César Blanco), and the other calls on state agencies to achieve 10 percent energy efficiency by 2020 and a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, while obtaining 25 percent of their electricity from renewable energy by 2030 (HB 4525 also by Blanco).
Another positive piece of legislation, HB 2860 by Richard Raymond, would protect consumers who want to self-generate or store their own electricity from unfair treatment by municipalities or homeowners associations. The bill would also guarantee more transparency for customers. This is critical, as self-generation and storage by consumers can help support the state’s power grid, especially amid the tight reserve margins projected for this summer.
The bad renewable energy bills are those that target Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code, which incentivizes wind and solar development in Texas, including HB 3168 by Dan Flynn, HB 4180 by Rick Miller and SB 2232 by Kelly Hancock. Only SB 2232 has had a hearing so far and was was voted out of committee on April 9th, so is one to keep an eye on. It requires a study of the incentives rather than an outright elimination of them.
Oil and Gas: flaring, methane emissions and oilfield wastewater
EDF is tracking oil and gas bills related to flaring, methane emissions and wastewater.
Hydraulic fracturing, which has driven the state’s oil boom, often produces large amounts of natural gas in addition to oil, which many companies aren’t equipped to handle and simply burn (“flare”) off. Recent reports estimate flaring in Texas wastes approximately $322 million worth of natural gas, and this wasted gas is currently exempt from the state’s natural gas production tax.
HB 3275 by Jessica Gonzalez would remove this exemption and tax flared gas at the existing natural gas tax rate of 7.5 percent. EDF supports this common sense bill as a way to encourage producers to limit their flaring while generating revenue for our schools, roads and the state’s Rainy Day Fund. The bill has not been granted a committee hearing and industry opposition is expected.
Oil and gas operations can emit large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas about 80 times more potent than CO2 in the near-term. Methane is also the main ingredient in natural gas and a valuable energy resource. SB 2064 by José Menéndez, would direct University Lands to study best practices for reducing methane pollution from oil and gas wells on their 2.1 million acres of land in the West Texas Permian Basin. University Lands leases its extensive oil and gas minerals to help fund the University of Texas and Texas A&M University. Methane emissions represent lost revenue for higher education and wasted public resources, which is why EDF supports SB 2064 and would like to see University Lands become a leader in reducing methane emissions in the Permian Basin.
Oil and gas wells also produce enormous amounts of salty, chemical-laden wastewater (“produced water”) – nearly 900 billion gallons annually in the U.S. Historically, this wastewater is reused in the oilfield or disposed of deep underground to reduce the chances of contamination, but water scarcity is causing industry and some states to look into riskier, unproven disposal practices beyond the oilfield.
Here in Texas, drought is driving some to consider repurposing this waste stream, but EDF is concerned that moving too quickly on these practices could hurt, rather than help, existing water resources. HB 3717 by Alex Dominguez and SB 1999 by Juan Hinojosa would give a tax break to oil and gas producers to inject treated oilfield wastewater into an aquifer. Trent Ashby filed HB 3067, which provides the same tax break but is even more permissive for what the treated wastewater could be used for. We don’t know nearly enough about how to test, treat and monitor this waste stream to release large volumes of it into our environment. Until we have answers to critical questions, we shouldn’t incentivize these actions that could threaten our communities’ health. EDF opposes these bills but looks forward to continued dialogue with their authors.
Water bills
The primary water bills we’re tracking are related to water planning and water conservation (which is also an energy efficiency strategy).
Good bills to watch include:HB 807 by Lyle Larson which seeks to better improve coordination between regions in the statewide water planning process (passed out of the House; next step Senate committee).SB 2067 by José Menendez includes climate change in the State Water Plan in a fashion (no hearing scheduled).SB 900 by Juan Hinojosa creates a framework for state and local drought planning; creates Water Conservation Advisory Council; includes utilities; requires monitoring of water conservation technologies; and sets up drought response (no hearing scheduled).HB 2031 by John Turner tells the state to actually do the water conservation outreach programs it is already authorized to do, use funds, and permit acceptance of grants and donations beyond appropriations (no hearing scheduled).SB 2331 by Brandon Creighton establishes statewide water conservation plans in order for localities to apply for a loan from the state; replaces water use reporting (no hearing scheduled).
Hurricane Harvey bills
This year marks the first legislative session since Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Texas coast.
Every committee in in the legislature was given a Harvey-related interim charge to study, and now, in the wake of the storm, we’re seeing the results of that work: from funding recovery to insurance issues to emergency preparedness. We’re also seeing bills related to flood plans and resilience. While these bills are helpful steps towards the state getting its head around flooding threats and solutions, they unfortunately tackle only one aspect of post-Harvey resilience.
Several bills have been filed to create a State Flood Plan, similar to the State Water Plan. The one moving forward is SB 8 by Charles Perry, et al. It requires a statewide flood plan to be submitted every five years, as well as coordination by several state agencies and regional planning groups. It has already passed the Senate and is now ready for the next step in the House.
Similarly, several bills have been filed to create a fund to finance flood infrastructure projects. HB 13 by Dade Phelan, et al and its accompanying HJR 4 have both been voted out of the House and are headed to the Senate. HB 13 would create a Flood Infrastructure Fund and HJR 4 is the constitutional amendment that would require an approval by voters to create the fund. Our biggest concern here is the emphasis on structural solutions (i.e., built, infrastructure), and we would like to see a clearer emphasis on non-structural alternatives (i.e., natural infrastructure) added to the bill.
Most of the bills highlighted here will not become law, but they represent some of the most significant opportunities (and obstacles) Texas faces for achieving a prosperous and sustainable future. As the legislative session progresses, EDF will be paying close attention to these bills and the evolving conversations around them.
http://blogs.edf.org/texascleanairmatters/2019/04/11/what-to-watch-as-the-texas-legislature-takes-up-climate-energy-water-and-more/
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Apr 12, 2019 | JD Supra
On April 10, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed rule regarding its plan to review certain confidential business information (CBI) claims to protect the specific chemical identities of substances on the confidential portion of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory. The CBI claims that would be reviewed under this plan are those that were asserted on Notice of Activity (NOA) Form A’s filed in accordance with the requirements in the Active-Inactive rule. Once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register, a 60-day comment period will begin.
BACKGROUND
TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(C) requires EPA to promulgate a rule establishing a plan to review all CBI claims to protect the specific chemical identities of chemical substances on the confidential portion of the TSCA Inventory that were asserted in an NOA Form A. This rule must be promulgated not later than one year after the publication of the first TSCA Inventory containing all “active” substance designations. TSCA also requires EPA to implement the CBI review plan so as to complete all CBI claim reviews not later than five years after such TSCA Inventory publication, with the possibility of a two-year extension. EPA states that since it released the updated TSCA Inventory on February 19, 2019, the deadline for issuing a final rule is February 19, 2020, and the deadline for completing all the CBI claim reviews is February 19, 2024. If EPA invokes the two-year extension under TSCA, the deadline for completing all the CBI claim reviews would then become February 19, 2026. As reported in our February 21, 2019, memorandum, “EPA Releases Updated TSCA Inventory,” of the 40,655 chemicals in commerce, more than 80 percent (32,898) have identities that are not CBI and fewer than 20 percent (7,757) have identities that were claimed as CBI.
EPA notes that other types of CBI claims are outside the scope of the review plan under TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(C) through (E), and hence are outside the scope of the proposed rule. Those claims are governed by other statutory and regulatory provisions. Substantiation and review of CBI claims for other data elements in an NOA Form A are governed by TSCA Section 14(g) and 40 C.F.R. Section 710.37(b) and (c)(1). EPA states that substantiation and review of CBI claims for specific chemical identity in an NOA Form B -- “a forward-looking reporting form required when reintroducing an ‘inactive’ chemical substance into U.S. commerce for a nonexempt commercial purpose” -- are governed by TSCA Section 8(b)(5) and 40 C.F.R. Section 710.37(a)(2).PROPOSED RULE
Confidentiality Claims for Specific Chemical Identities that Would Be Substantiated under the Rule
CBI Claims Subject to SubstantiationSubject to the exemptions described below, the substantiation requirement in the proposed rule would apply to all CBI claims for specific chemical identities that manufacturers (which as defined in the proposed rule includes importers) or processors requested to maintain in NOA Form A’s filed in accordance with the Active-Inactive rule.
Exemptions from Substantiation Requirement
Pursuant to TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(D), EPA proposes exemptions from the requirement to submit new substantiation in certain cases where the CBI claims have already been substantiated in a recent submission to EPA. The proposed exemptions would be available to manufacturers or processors who provided substantiations for specific chemical identity CBI claims either: (1) pursuant to the voluntary substantiation process associated with the Active-Inactive rule; or (2) in another submission made to EPA less than five years before the substantiation deadline that will be set in the final rule.
For those manufacturers or processors who filed voluntary substantiations with their NOA Form A’s pursuant to the process set forth in the Active-Inactive rule, no further action would be required. Those persons would automatically be deemed exempt from the substantiation requirement under the proposed rule.
EPA proposes to require manufacturers and processors who wish to establish eligibility for an exemption based upon any other recently-submitted substantiation to report and identify for EPA the following about that recently-submitted substantiation: submission date; submission type; and case number, transaction ID, or equivalent identifier that uniquely identifies the previous submission that includes the substantiation upon which the manufacturer or processor is relying. EPA states that previously submitted substantiations might include, for example, those submitted pursuant to a regulatory up-front substantiation requirement (such as 40 C.F.R. Section 711.30(b)(1) or 40 C.F.R. Section 720.85(b)(3)(iv)), the statutory substantiation requirement at TSCA Section 14(c)(3), or the comment process described in 40 C.F.R. Section 2.204(e).When Substantiation Would Be Required
EPA proposes to require that all substantiations be filed not later than 90 days after the effective date of the final rule. EPA proposes the same filing deadline for submissions identifying a previously submitted substantiation for purposes of establishing eligibility for an exemption. If a substantiation or notice of prior CBI substantiation was not filed within the 90-day filing period in accordance with all requirements of the proposed rule or voluntarily filed in accordance with all requirements of 40 C.F.R. Section 710.37(a)(1), EPA proposes to consider the confidentiality claim to be deficient and would treat the specific chemical identity as not subject to a confidentiality claim, such that EPA may make the information public without further notice.
EPA states that this treatment of unsubstantiated confidentiality claims as deficient would be consistent with how EPA has handled unsubstantiated confidentiality claims in other regulations, e.g., 40 C.F.R. Section 710.37(a)(2) and (b) (Active-Inactive rule) and 40 C.F.R. Section 711.30(e) (Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule). EPA nevertheless requests comment on the validity of making this information public without further notice, particularly where a claimant may have previously submitted a substantiation to EPA less than five years before the substantiation deadline that will be set in the final rule, but failed to report and identify that previously-submitted substantiation to EPA within the 90-day filing period.How CBI Claims Would Be Substantiated
EPA proposes to require that non-exempt manufacturers and processors substantiate any CBI claim for a specific chemical identity that they requested to maintain in an NOA Form A by submitting answers to the questions below, by providing the certification statement described below, and by requiring that the submission be signed and dated by an authorized official.
Substantiation QuestionsDo you believe that the information is exempt from substantiation pursuant to TSCA Section 14(c)(2)? If you answered yes, you must individually identify the specific information claimed as confidential and specify the applicable exemption(s).Will disclosure of the information likely result in substantial harm to your business’s competitive position? If you answered yes, describe with specificity the substantial harmful effects that would likely result to your competitive position if the information is made available to the public.To the extent your business has disclosed the information to others (both internally and externally), what precautions has your business taken? Identify the measures or internal controls your business has taken to protect the information claimed as confidential: non-disclosure agreement required prior to access; access is limited to individuals with a need-to-know; information is physically secured; other internal control measure(s). If yes, explain.Does the information appear in any public documents, including (but not limited to) safety data sheets, advertising or promotional material, professional or trade publication, or any other media or publications available to the general public? If you answered yes, explain why the information should be treated as confidential.Is the claim of confidentiality intended to last less than ten years? If so, indicate the number of years (between one to ten years) or the specific date/occurrence after which the claim is withdrawn.Has EPA, another federal agency, or court made any confidentiality determination regarding information associated with this chemical substance? If you answered yes, explain the outcome of that determination and provide a copy of the previous confidentiality determination or any other information that will assist in identifying the prior determination.Is the confidential chemical substance publicly known to have ever been offered for commercial distribution in the U.S.? If you answered yes, explain why the information should be treated as confidential.
Certification Statement
An authorized official of a manufacturer or processor substantiating a request to maintain an existing claim of confidentiality for specific chemical identity would be required to certify that the submission complies with the requirements of the rule by signing and dating the following certification statement:
I certify that all claims for confidentiality made or sought to be maintained with this submission are true and correct, and all information submitted herein to substantiate such claims is true and correct. Any knowing and willful misrepresentation is subject to criminal penalty pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 1001. I further certify that it is true and correct that:My company has taken reasonable measures to protect the confidentiality of the information;I have determined that the information is not required to be disclosed or otherwise made available to the public under any other Federal law;I have a reasonable basis to conclude that disclosure of the information is likely to cause substantial harm to the competitive position of my company; andI have a reasonable basis to believe that the information is not readily discoverable through reverse engineering.
How Information Would Be Submitted to EPA
The proposed rule would require persons submitting substantiations or information on previously submitted substantiations to follow the electronic reporting procedures set forth in the Active-Inactive rule at 40 C.F.R. Section 710.39. Any person submitting a substantiation under this proposed rule could claim any part or all of the substantiation as CBI. Submitters would be required to use EPA’s electronic reporting portal, Central Data Exchange (CDX), and EPA’s web-based reporting tool, Chemical Information Submission System (CISS). Because all submitters under this proposed rule would have previously filed NOA Form A’s under the Active-Inactive rule using these electronic reporting procedures, EPA states that it expects that all submitters are already registered with CDX and familiar with the electronic reporting procedures. EPA proposes mandatory electronic reporting because it is expected to allow for more efficient data transmittal, support improved data quality, minimize respondent burden, and reduce EPA administrative costs associated with information submission and recordkeeping.
How EPA Would Review Claims of Confidentiality for Specific Chemical Identities
Consistent with how EPA handles the review of other TSCA confidentiality claims, EPA states that it would carefully consider the facts provided in the substantiations, any pertinent previously issued confidentiality determinations, and other reasonably available information that it finds appropriate to determine the information’s entitlement to confidential treatment. EPA would apply the substantive criteria for confidentiality determinations set forth in 40 C.F.R. Sections 2.208 and 2.306(g), which provide in relevant part that information is entitled to confidential treatment for the benefit of a particular business if: (a) the business has asserted a confidentiality claim that has not expired by its terms, nor been waived nor withdrawn; (b) the business has satisfactorily shown that it has taken reasonable measures to protect the confidentiality of the information, and that it intends to continue to take such measures; (c) the information is not, and has not been, reasonably obtainable without the business’s consent by other persons (other than governmental bodies) by use of legitimate means (other than discovery based on a showing of need in a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding); (d) no statute specifically requires disclosure of the information; and (e) the business has satisfactorily shown that disclosure of the information is likely to cause substantial harm to the business’s competitive position.
In instances where there are multiple NOA Form A’s asserting the confidentiality of the same chemical identity, EPA states that it may choose to review these NOA Form A’s together “as a matter of efficiency.”
In instances where EPA denies a CBI claim, EPA would notify the submitter, in writing, of EPA’s intent to disclose the specific chemical identity and of EPA’s reasons for denying the claim. The notice would be furnished by certified mail (return receipt requested), by personal delivery, or by other means that allows verification of the fact and date of receipt. EPA would not disclose the specific chemical identity until the date that is 30 days after the date on which the submitter receives the denial notice. Submitters can challenge EPA’s denial of a CBI claim by commencing an action to prevent disclosure in an appropriate federal district court. In instances where a CBI claim is approved, EPA would so inform the submitter, and the chemical substance would be identified in subsequent publications of the TSCA Inventory by a unique identifier assigned under TSCA Section 14(g)(4), in addition to the accession number, generic name, and, if applicable, premanufacture notice case number.
Annual Review Goals and Results, Extension
EPA proposes to use its website to publish its annual goal for reviews completed under this review plan at the beginning of each calendar year, starting with its goals for 2020, which EPA anticipates would be posted in February 2020. EPA also proposes to track the number of CBI reviews completed under this review plan each year and is proposing to use its website to publish that number at the beginning of the following year, starting with the number of reviews completed in 2020, which EPA anticipates would be posted in February 2021.
EPA intends to implement the CBI review plan described in this proposed rule to complete reviews of all CBI claims for specific chemical identities not later than five years after the publication of the first TSCA Inventory containing all “active” substance designations based on NOA Form A’s, as required under TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(E)(i). Since the initial list of active substances was published on February 19, 2019, EPA intends to complete all reviews by February 19, 2024. EPA states that it intends the annual review goals to take into consideration this target completion date, the number of claims needing review, and available resources. According to the proposed rule, before the effective date of the final rule, EPA may begin reviewing and deciding claims that were voluntarily substantiated under the Active-Inactive rule (subject to the outcome of pending litigation involving that rule), or that appear to be clearly not entitled to protection from disclosure based upon other information available to EPA. TSCA Section 14(i)(2) expressly permits EPA to review, require (re)substantiation of, and decide TSCA CBI claims before the effective date of such rules applicable to those claims as EPA may promulgate after June 22, 2016. EPA states that it believes that TSCA Section 14(i)(2) clearly authorizes it to begin its reviews under TSCA Section 8(b)(4) prior to publication of this final rule, and that “doing so is appropriate in light of the Congressionally-mandated timeline for the completion of reviews.”
TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(E)(ii)(I) provides that after an adequate public justification, EPA may extend the five-year deadline for completion of reviews for not more than two additional years. EPA states that while it does not currently anticipate a need for an extension, “possible justifications for an extension might include, among other things, competing TSCA obligations which prevent the Agency from completing the reviews within five years, intervening events that divert the Agency’s resources from completing the required reviews, or litigation involving the claim substantiation and review process that may delay EPA’s commencement of CBI claim reviews.” Should an extension become necessary, EPA proposes to announce the extension and its justification to the public via a notice in the Federal Register.Duration of Protection from Disclosure
TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(D)(ii)(III) provides that specific chemical identities for which EPA has approved a CBI claim under TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(D) must be protected from disclosure for a period of ten years, unless, prior to the expiration of that period, the claimant notifies EPA that they are withdrawing the confidentiality claim, in which case EPA cannot protect the information from disclosure; or EPA otherwise becomes aware that the information does not qualify for protection from disclosure, in which case it must take the actions described in TSCA Section 14(g)(2) (i.e., to notify the claimant of EPA’s intent to disclose the information). EPA states that TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(D)(ii)(III) does not explicitly state when the ten-year period of protection begins, but TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(D)(ii) provides as a general matter that EPA’s actions under the review plan must be “in accordance with section 14.” Under TSCA Section 14(e)(1)(B)(i), as amended on June 22, 2016, the duration of protection from disclosure lasts “for a period of 10 years from the date on which the person asserts the claim with respect to the information submitted to the Administrator.”
Notably, all specific chemical identity CBI claims subject to review under TSCA Section 8(b)(4) and this proposed rule had already been asserted by one or more persons prior to June 22, 2016, resulting in the placement of the chemical substance on the confidential portion of the TSCA Inventory. Pursuant to TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(B)(ii) and the Active-Inactive rule, manufacturers and processors submitting NOA Form A’s were only permitted to indicate that they seek to maintain an existing claim for protection against disclosure of the specific chemical identity of the chemical substance. TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(C) describes these requests to maintain existing claims as “claims . . . asserted pursuant to [TSCA section 8(b)(4)(B)],” and TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(D)(i) refers to “manufacturers or processors asserting claims under [TSCA section 8(b)(4)(B)].” Thus, EPA states that it believes Congress intended that the filing date of the request seeking to maintain the CBI claim (i.e., the filing date of the NOA Form A) may function as the date of claim assertion for purposes of determining the period of protection from disclosure. In cases where the same specific chemical identity was subject to a CBI claim in another submission filed on or after June 22, 2016, however, “EPA believes it would be incongruous to effectively re-start the 10-year period of protection from disclosure based upon the subsequent submission of a request (i.e., an NOA Form A) seeking to maintain that claim.” Accordingly, EPA proposes to interpret the date of assertion for purposes of calculating the duration of protection under TSCA Section 8(b)(4)(D)(ii)(III) as the date of submission of the first filing in which the specific chemical identity was claimed as CBI after June 22, 2016. This interpretation would impact the calculation of the period of protection from disclosure where there are multiple submitters of the NOA Form A that are asserting confidentiality claims on the same specific chemical identity, as well as where one or more submitters of information to EPA outside the context of the NOA Form A has asserted a specific chemical identity confidentiality claim after June 22, 2016. Companies will be notified of the date from which the ten-year period of protection will be calculated.
For example, if on July 1, 2016, a company addressing a CDR rule reporting requirement filed a report for a subject chemical substance and asserted a CBI claim for the specific chemical identity, and if EPA subsequently approved the company’s confidentiality claim, then EPA states that the ten-year time period of protection from disclosure would begin on July 1, 2016. If that company subsequently filed an NOA Form A on January 1, 2018, and sought to maintain the confidentiality claim for that specific chemical identity, and if EPA subsequently approved that claim, the ten-year period of protection from disclosure would continue to run from July 1, 2016, and would not restart on the date of the NOA filing. If a second company then filed an NOA Form A on February 1, 2018, seeking to maintain a CBI claim for that same specific chemical identity, and the second company’s claim were approved, the ten-year period of protection from disclosure would still run from July 1, 2016. In cases where an NOA Form A was the first submission to assert the CBI claim for a specific chemical identity after June 22, 2016, the ten-year period of protection for an approved claim would begin on the date of that NOA filing.The Record Retention Requirements
EPA proposes to require that persons subject to the final rule retain records that document any information reported to EPA. The proposed rule would require such records to be retained for a period of five years beginning on the last day of the submission period, which is consistent with the statutory mandate in TSCA Section 8(b)(9)(B).
COMMENTARY
We congratulate EPA on the timely issuance of the proposed rule that should enable it to promulgate the final rule within the one-year statutory deadline. We appreciate the clarity and concision of the discussion in the proposed rule text and believe it has set out most of the issues on which stakeholders can be expected to comment.
In our view, EPA has appropriately interpreted the statutory text at Section 8(b)(4)((B)(ii) as broadly applying to any existing claim for protection from disclosure of confidential chemical identity. As EPA states in the proposed rule, all specific chemical identity CBI claims that would be subject to the proposed rule “had already been asserted by one or more persons prior to June 22, 2016, resulting in the placement of the chemical substance on the confidential portion of the TSCA Inventory.” EPA is thus viewing any such claim to confer confidential chemical identity status for the chemical’s Inventory listing. Under this interpretation, any manufacturer or processor can seek to maintain and appropriately substantiate such a CBI claim even if they did not make the original claim for confidential chemical identity.
One aspect that may benefit from consideration during the comment period and clarification in the final rule concerns withdrawals of confidentiality claims in situations where there are multiple claims for protection from disclosure. The proposed regulatory text at 40 C.F.R. Section 710.55(b) discusses the situation wherein, prior to the expiration of the ten-year period of protection from disclosure, “the claimant notifies EPA that the person is withdrawing the confidentiality claim, in which case EPA will notprotect the information from disclosure” (emphasis added). This language strikes us as more categorical than necessary and may not adequately consider situations that involve multiple manufacturer or processor claims for confidential chemical identity.
Another aspect that may draw comment concerns EPA’s proposed approach under which it will start the ten-year clock for protection from disclosure from the date on which the claim was first asserted by any submitter after June 22, 2016. While we appreciate the simplicity and administrative efficiency of the proposed approach, stakeholders may argue that the approach is inconsistent with Section 14(e)(B)(i) that describes the duration for protection from disclosure to be “a period of 10 years from the date on which the person asserts the claim” (emphasis added).https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/epa-announces-proposed-procedures-for-19883
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Guest View: Montana Needs a Complete Asbestos Ban
Apr 12, 2019 | Montana Standard
By Linda Reinstein
The deadly legacy of asbestos has cost Montanans dearly.
Montana’s Senators, Jon Tester and Steve Daines, know all too well how the scourge of asbestos has savaged the beautiful town of Libby. More than 400 residents have died and thousands more have been diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases since W.R. Grace closed its vermiculite mine in 1990.
This is why an asbestos ban is especially crucial to Montanans, perhaps more than anyone else in the United States.
“My communities in Montana are eager for progress… we’ve known for a while the dangers of asbestos and we want to protect others from the tragedies we’ve seen in Montana,” Daines said in a recent Senate hearing.
But then the senator announced something curious. He is working on legislation that would simply prohibit “new uses” of asbestos. That would fall tragically short of a ban that would protect Montanans and the nation from the deadly carcinogen which continues to be imported and used today.
A bill to halt “new uses” of asbestos is a false flag masquerading as a ban. This tactic, referred to as a SNUR or “Significant New Use Rule” by EPA regulators, is designed to give cover instead of take action. In fact, in 2018, when the EPA proposed a similar SNUR rule on asbestos, nearly 20,000 public comments were submitted in opposition.
The real issue is the risk posed by uses of asbestos that already exist, not the industry’s smokescreen of possible new uses. According to the United States Geological Survey, the U.S. presently imports raw chrysotile asbestos (for use in chlor-alkali diaphragms), as well as a slew of asbestos-containing products, including brake linings, knitted fabrics, rubber sheets (i.e. sheet gaskets), and cement pipe. Independent testing by other organizations has confirmed that some makeup brands, baby powder, and crayons are contaminated with asbestos as well.
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that asbestos is a carcinogen and there is no safe or controlled use, yet some companies continue to put profits over people’s health. The chlor-alkali industry which produces industrial chlorine and caustic soda insists on using asbestos in its production process. Safer alternatives to asbestos are available and are used in other countries. Just last year, the chlor-alkali industry doubled its asbestos imports — sourced primarily from Brazilian and Russian mines — to a staggering 750 metric tons.. Despite the fact that nearly 40,000 Americans die every year from asbestos-linked disease, they brazenly claim that their “use [of the mineral] does not pose an unreasonable health risk to workers.”
The public health disaster in Libby should be an important lesson for us. It’s a lesson about greed, corruption, and the human cost of inaction. The cleanup of the Libby Superfund sites have cost taxpayers $596 million. In fact, it’s taken 17 years to remove one of the eight Libby Superfund sites from the National Priorities List.
There is no price tag for the suffering and death. For the patients who have been silenced by asbestos and their families left behind — in Montana and throughout the nation — we owe them more than dollars.
What they deserve is a true asbestos ban — one without loopholes or exemptions, one that stops all imports of raw asbestos, asbestos-containing products and contaminated goods used by kids and families. The U.S. needs to ban asbestos once and for all.
During the past two years, the EPA has repeatedly undermined public health and the environment. Regulatory rollbacks and a complete failure to implement the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act have demonstrated an overt negligence of the Agency’s responsibility to manage, mitigate, or eliminate chemical exposures.
There is a bill in Congress that will solve that: the Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act (ARBAN) of 2019. Sen. Tester is a co-sponsor of the legislation, which is endorsed by the AFL-CIO, American Public Health Associations, Montana Public Health Association, and other leading occupational safety and health organizations. If passed, it would ban the manufacturing, processing, use, and distribution of asbestos within a year of being signed. Vitally important, it will has ban the Libby amphibole that has caused the pain and disease in Libby, bringing true protection to Montanans and all Americans.
It’s time to embrace bipartisanship and take the legislative steps to ban all uses, old and new, without exemptions or loopholes. Together with Senators Tester and Daines, I have confidence that Montana will boldly lead the nation with legislation to finally ban asbestos once and for all.
https://mtstandard.com/opinion/columnists/guest-view-montana-needs-a-complete-asbestos-ban/article_023d55aa-b677-5e3e-ad5b-7bb625c40de7.html
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(ACC Mentioned) IRIS' High-Profile Chief To Be Shifted To New Role Under ORD Reorganization
Apr 12, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Tina Bahadori, chief of the EPA research center that oversees its influential Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, is slated to be shifted to a new role as part of the Office of Research and Development's (ORD) reorganization, a move that some say may be driven by her efforts to advance a program the Trump administration is seeking to sideline.
“There's no more competent person to lead the IRIS program” than Bahadori, one former EPA source says, adding that she is viewed as a “real visionary” in trying to address longstanding issues with the ponderous and controversial IRIS program during her short tenure. “I would question why someone of her expertise was removed.”
The move underscores concerns that Democrats and other critics have raised over steps that agency leaders are taking to sideline IRIS, including scaling back its assessment agenda, directing staff time to other programs, trying to cut its budget and other steps.
In a statement, an EPA spokesperson did not address Bahadori's new role but says that “All of IRIS’s functions are staying with IRIS and will be folded into” a new research center the agency is creating as part of ORD's reorganization.
News of Bahadori's move is detailed in new charts that ORD recently released identifying the new directors and deputy directors for the seven proposed managing offices and scientific centers, as well as proposed new national program directors.
Some changes were anticipated, since ORD is planning to merge with the previously separate Office of the Science Advisor (OSA) while consolidating from three labs and four centers into just four centers.
Under the reorganized plan, Bahadori is slated to leave her position as director of the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) -- which oversees IRIS -- to take the role of national program director of the new Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessment program.
Before becoming NCEA director in the waning days of the Obama EPA, Bahdori had been director of one of the other, larger national research programs, the Chemical Safety and Sustainability program.
Under the reorganization, NCEA is slated to merge with two existing labs, the National Exposure Research Lab and the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Lab (NHEERL). The three existing units are proposed to form the new Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment (CPHEA).
The EPA spokesperson said IRIS will be folded into CPHEA, adding that “research conducted by ORD will continue to be governed by the Strategic Research Action Plans and implemented by the new Centers."
The new CPHEA is to be led by Wayne Cascio, currently the director of NHEERL, with Kay Holt, a former deputy director of NHEERL, slated to be the center's deputy. In his new role as CPHEA director, Cascio, a cardiologist and long-time ORD scientist who studies air pollution's effects on cardiovascular health, will oversee the IRIS program.
'Excellent Scientist'
Cascio “is an excellent scientist,” the agency source says, but adds that his expertise is in public health, where the focus is on addressing disease in the population, not predictive risk assessment methods.
As a result, he may lack the background and expertise necessary to engage with Nancy Beck, the administration's deputy chief of EPA's toxics office and a long-time critic of the IRIS program, on controversial risk assessment issues, the source adds.
Cascio does have experience with controversial EPA programs. Cascio used to run EPA's program exposing human volunteers to air pollution to better understand the effects. The program was sued in 2012 by a free-market group, with Cascio providing a declaration to the court regarding the value of the study in question.
Kris Thayer, an expert in systematic review approaches who Bahadori brought in to lead the IRIS program from the National Toxicology Program, will remain in her position.
Bahadori and Thayer have been largely responsible for putting the IRIS program on a more solid footing after a high-profile critique from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2011. Among other things, they pledged to shift the IRIS “paradigm,” including working quickly to implement long-pending reforms, speeding release of its chemical assessments and making the program more relevant to partners inside and outside the agency.
Keys to their plans were planning for speedier “targeted” assessments, and implementing “systematic review” for guiding assessments -- a major recommendation from NAS. Their efforts won immediate, strong support from EPA advisors who voted unanimously to tout the benefits of IRIS and NCEA.
While the ORD reorganization is staff led, and generally viewed by sources inside and outside the agency as the natural outcome of the decades-long decline in the office's funding and personnel levels, multiple sources have suggested that Bahadori was moved away from the program because of her efforts to advance IRIS -- efforts at odds with Trump EPA leaders who have sought to sideline the program.
Bahadori and Beck “are the two people at the most senior level who managed risk assessment resources at EPA -- one a career person and one a political -- with two very difficult perspectives on risk assessment,” an agency source says. “It reduces the number of individuals with that [expertise and stature] to one.”
Beck, a toxicologist who came to the Trump EPA from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), has been a long-time critic of the IRIS program, arguing that its assessments are overly conservative and will lead to unnecessarily stringent rules. Bahadori is a chemical engineer who joined EPA's ranks of career scientists seven years ago, also from ACC, where she managed its long-range research program.
The agency source points to the two leaders' different approaches on systematic review, a process derived from medical research for gathering and evaluating scientific evidence to increase the rigor and transparency of chemical evaluations and recommended by NAS for EPA's risk work.
“Tina Bahadori is known for active engagement with NAS and taking the lead in working with NAS to develop systematic review” for the IRIS program, the source says, noting that her efforts and those of Thayer, the systematic review expert, were recognized by NAS members during a short review last year.
NAS' April 2018 report said that its authors were “impressed with the changes being instituted in the IRIS program since” NAS' last IRIS review, published in 2014.
By contrast, the source says, “Nancy Beck has a [systematic review] approach [developed for the toxics office] that is not recognized anywhere, but she takes issues with” IRIS' approach. “It's not been subjected to any review, though there's a promise of a future review” by the NAS, a commitment that Administrator Andrew Wheeler made to Democratic senators to smooth confirmation process for toxics chief Alexandra Dunn.
“This all has to be seen in light of the transformation this administration wants to make in [EPA] risk assessment [practices], and a systematic attempt to undermine a process developed over decades of public peer review,” the source adds. “Our current approach is approved by [NAS] -- including the defaults” EPA uses in its risk analyses to address various uncertainties but which are often blamed for making assessments too stringent.
'Ambitious Schedule'
While EPA's spokesperson and other agency officials say IRIS will continue, they are also seeking to assure staff that no one will lose their jobs as part of the ORD reorganization, an effort that acting research chief Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta says is on an ambitious schedule.
She told Inside EPA last month that Wheeler is pushing for the ORD overhaul to be implemented at the start of fiscal year 2020.
At a reorganization update meeting last week, ORD leaders sought to assuage staff concerns by reiterating that no one will lose their jobs or be forced to move because of the reorganization, one ORD source says. Going forward, staff have been asked to comment on a two-question survey asking whether any “key functions” are missing from the proposed new structure and whether any key functions should be added or realigned in a different way, the source adds.
But one official is notably absent from the reorganization plan: Thomas Sinks, the current director of OSA.
OSA is currently a separate science office outside ORD that oversees several interagency science policy fora. It is slated to be merged with ORD's science policy office, creating the new Office of Science Advisor, Policy & Engagement. Its director is to be Mary Ross, currently Bahadori's deputy at NCEA.
Kacee Deener, acting director of ORD's policy office, is to be the deputy director of the new center. Sinks, who was brought to OSA from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by former Obama EPA Science Advisor Tom Burke, does not appear on the reorganization chart.
The schedule as planned calls for listening sessions among ORD leaders and staff in mid-April to May, and finalizing the plan and staffing in mid-May to June, the ORD source says. Official notification to Congress and the unions representing ORD staff are planned for July 1 -- Sept. 30, the source adds.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/iris-high-profile-chief-be-shifted-new-role-under-ord-reorganization
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After VT. Water Agreement, N.Y. Mayor Eager for Solution
Apr 12, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
The mayor of a New York community that has been looking for a solution to the chemical contamination of its water supply says he's glad a permanent solution has been reached to a similar problem in nearby Bennington, Vt.
Hoosick Falls Mayor Robert Allen made the comments yesterday, a day after Vermont officials announced they had reached a final settlement with Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics to ensure hundreds of homes and businesses have access to clean drinking water (Greenwire, April 11).
The water system in Hoosick Falls, 10 miles west of Bennington, was also contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a chemical once used in certain industrial processes.
Allen says town officials authorized a lawsuit but have not filed one. He says the community is still hoping to reach a negotiated settlement.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/12/stories/1060155665
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California Publishes Prop 65 Webpage on Styrene
Apr 12, 2019 | Chemical Watch
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has published a Proposition 65 webpage with information on styrene.
The substance – widely used in the production of polystyrene plastics and resins, synthetic rubbers, and latex paints and coatings – was listed as a carcinogen under the state’s scheme in April 2016.
The page includes information on where exposures to styrene may occur and advice for avoiding it. This includes a recommendation to avoid storing or microwaving food in polystyrene-based containers (those bearing recycle code 6), and using a well-ventilated area for printing.
The information is housed on Oehha’s Prop 65 warnings website. September 2016 amendments to how ‘clear and reasonable’ warnings should be provided under the law directs companies to include the URL for this site in their warnings.
https://chemicalwatch.com/76336/california-publishes-prop-65-webpage-on-styrene
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Judge Orders Bayer to Pursue Talks in Roundup Cancer Litigation
Apr 12, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joel Rosenblatt
A U.S. judge ordered Bayer AG to pursue mediation with plaintiffs claiming that its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer, asking the company to try to settle lawsuits that have wreaked havoc on its share price.
More than 11,200 people have sued Bayer over Roundup in U.S. state and federal courts, and the company has lost two consecutive trials so far. The judge in San Francisco handling the federal suits initiated confidential talks as he canceled a third trial scheduled for May 20 that would have followed an $80 million verdict against Bayer last month.
“The parties should propose a mediator,” U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria wrote in an order April 11. “If they cannot agree, the court will appoint someone.”
Chhabria said in lieu of the May trial, resources are better spent organizing the cases collected in the multidistrict litigation before him. That means determining which of those lawsuits should be dismissed, which should be sent to state courts, and sending other cases back to where they were originally filed for trials in federal court.
Bayer rose as much as 1 percent in Frankfurt on April 12, after an early dip. The legal fight over Roundup, and its main ingredient glyphosate, has wiped more than 30 billion euros ($34 billion) off the German company’s market value since the first trial loss last August.
Thomas G. Rohback, a trial lawyer at Axinn in New York, said in an email that Chhabria’s order requiring mediation isn’t unusual, and cautioned against reading too much into it leading to a settlement anytime soon. But he also pointed to the privacy of mediation, and how that could permit Bayer to resolve the litigation without the multimillion-dollar headlines the trials have produced. Analysts predict a settlement could top $5 billion.
“The confidentiality—which is also quite common—could help Bayer pay a settlement amount without making that public,” Rohback said. “Of course, the key is whether the parties can reach an agreement.”
‘Good Faith’
Chris Loder, a spokesman for Bayer, said the company will comply with the court’s order for mediation “in good faith.”
“As this litigation is still in the early stages—with only two verdicts and no cases that have run their course through appeal—we will also remain focused on defending the safety of glyphosate-based herbicides in court,” Bayer said in an e-mailed statement on Friday.
In addition to the March verdict in Chhabria’s court, Bayer lost the first Roundup trial last summer in state court and was ordered to pay $78.6 million in damages. Another state court trial is under way in Oakland, California.
The judge set a May 22 hearing to discuss mediation efforts and possibly set a new date for the canceled trial.
Michael Baum, a lawyer representing plaintiffs in the cases before Chhabria, said in an email that it’d be “prudent and responsible” for Bayer to settle the litigation. Though the company is outwardly denying the evidence against it, internally it may be “more accurately assessing Roundup’s risks” and shareholder pressure, he said.
The case is In re: Roundup Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2741, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/judge-orders-bayer-to-pursue-talks-in-roundup-cancer-litigation
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Apr 12, 2019 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Mike Schade
Dr. Leo Trasande is a leading voice in public health policy and a top environmental medicine scientist. In a newly published book, he reveals the alarming truth about how hormone-disrupting chemicals like phthalates and flame retardants are affecting our daily lives—and what we can do to protect ourselves and fight back.
“Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future . . . and What We Can Do About It” exposes the chemicals that disrupt our hormonal systems and damage our health in irreparable ways. But it also tells the story of what we can all do to safeguard our health from toxic chemicals.
To learn more, read our Mind the Store campaign director Mike Schade’s interview with Dr. Trasande below. For the full story, pick up a copy of the book at your favorite local bookstore!
What inspired you to write your new book “Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future . . . and What We Can Do About It”?
Endocrine disrupting chemicals contribute to conditions that affect 99% of us – obesity, diabetes, infertility, cognitive deficits, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, endometriosis and fibroids. Yet 1% of us know about synthetic chemicals that scramble the basic and natural molecular signals our body uses to maintain body temperature, metabolism, salt, sugar and even sex. I wrote the book to empower the public with the information about the effects these chemicals can have and what they can do about it.
Many people were first awoken to the dangers of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC’s) when dangerous chemicals like DDT, Agent Orange (dioxin), and PCB’s were brought to public attention in the 1960s and 1970s. They weren’t referred to as endocrine disruptors back then but they are now classic examples of them. What have we learned about EDC’s since then? What’s changed?
We used to think endocrine disruption only had consequences at very high levels of exposure. Now we realize that synthetic chemicals can scramble molecular signals at much lower levels of exposure. The dose does not necessarily make the poison. Each day we find new examples of chemicals that have the greatest effects at the lowest levels of exposure.
What are some examples of EDCs that concern you the most and why? Where can they be found?
There are over 1000 synthetic chemicals that have been identified as EDCs. The evidence is strongest for four categories of chemicals – pesticides used in agriculture; flame retardants used in furniture, electronics and carpeting; bisphenols used in aluminum cans and thermal paper receipts, and phthalates used in cosmetics, personal care products and food packaging.
Information about toxic chemicals can be overwhelming. What are some simple steps that consumers can take to protect themselves and their families in their homes to reduce their exposure to EDCs?
There are safe and simple steps we can all take to limit exposure to EDCs, and they neither require a PhD in Chemistry nor break the bank.
Studies suggest that stopping canned food consumption can decrease bisphenol levels in urine as much as 90% or more. Also, say no to paper receipts. Most supermarkets are switching to electronic receipts that can avoid contact with the coating that contains BPA.
You should also be careful with your cosmetics. Look at the ingredient label and avoid products with “fragrance” or phthalates. A recent study found that choosing personal care products that are labeled to be free of phthalates, parabens and other endocrine disrupting chemicals can reduce exposure by as much as a third or more.
You can also limit phthalate and other problematic chemical exposures by looking at the recycling number on plastic bottles. Avoid the numbers 3, 6 and 7. You should also avoid washing plastic in the dishwasher, and hand wash with mild soap and water instead. If plastic food containers are etched, it’s time to throw them away. Etching increases the odds of leaching.
Finally, eating organic reduces your exposure to pesticides. Studies have proven this across the income spectrum. The cost margins for organic versus conventional foods are narrowing such that big-box stores are even carrying organic fruits, vegetables and meats now. In particular, keep in mind EWG’s Dirty Dozen, a group of fruits and veggies that are especially vulnerable to absorbing chemicals and therefore pose a greater risk when you buy “conventional” rather than organic produce.
We often say you can’t shop our way out of these problems. We need policy solutions, at the local, state, federal and international level, and from corporate decision-makers like big retailers and brands. What role do you think the business community and government should play in safeguarding the public from EDC’s?
There’s a role for regulation but remember that manufacturers do listen when consumers rise up and insist on safer products. A major driver of the ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups was the outcry from mothers who spoke up. More recently, a study of five grocery retailers drove two of the nation’s largest supermarket chains to get rid of Teflon-like compounds found in food packaging and food contact materials.
https://saferchemicals.org/2019/04/12/are-toxic-chemicals-making-you-sicker-fatter-and-poorer-an-interview-with-dr-leo-tresande-on-his-new-book/
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ATSDR Report Confirms Glyphosate Cancer Risks
Apr 11, 2019 | Natural Resource Defense Council
By Jennifer Sass
This week a public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), released the long-awaited Draft Toxicological Profile for Glyphosate. And, it supports and strengthens the 2015 cancer assessment of another health agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
For many years, glyphosate – more widely known under its trade name, Roundup – has been the world’s most widely used herbicide. GMO products from Monsanto - now owned by Bayer - like Roundup-Ready corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton are specifically designed to be grown using glyphosate-based herbicides, which has driven its use and sales to about 300 million pounds annually in the US, with about 90% of that on farm fields, and about 10% on non-agriculture uses like lawns, gardens, golf courses, and parks and playgrounds.
The EPA Pesticide Office had succeeded in holding this report back for several years while it promoted its “no cancer risk” position. In April 2015, now-retired EPA Pesticide Office official, Jess Rowland, tried to bury the ATSDR study, reportedly on Monsanto’s behalf. Rowland told Monsanto’s Dan Jenkins, “If I can kill this I should get a medal”, according to internal Monsanto emails that have now been made public. Jenkins subsequently emailed his Monsanto colleagues: “I doubt EPA and Jess can kill this; but it’s good to know they are going to actually make the effort now to coordinate due to our pressing and their shared concern that ATSDR is consistent in its conclusions w EPA.” Unfortunately, ATSDR did temporarily back-burner its work on glyphosate, agreeing instead to pay close attention to the EPA’s 2015 cancer assessment, according to court documents (see US RTK Monsanto Papers).
Now, almost exactly two years later, the ATSDR’s Draft Toxicological Profile for Glyphosate has risen from the near-dead and is out for public comment. At an impressive 257 pages, the fully-referenced report comprehensively covers both the cancer and non-cancer health effects linked to glyphosate exposure, the latter including adverse effects on reproduction and child development, and organ toxicity. Bravo, ATSDR!
A pattern is emerging: non-industry experts (Zhang et al 2019) and health agencies IARC and ATSDR are finding a link with glyphosate and cancer; whereas, regulatory agencies are lining up with Monsanto and Bayer that it does not cause cancer, even when reviewing the same scientific evidence (see ATSDR Fig 2-13).
More on the regulatory loopholes and failures in my companion blog, "Regulatory Failures = Superweeds and Glyphosate Cancers"
Glaring Cancer Risks
The most important thing to realize about the ATSDR report is how clearly it lays out the vast array of scientific evidence linking both pure glyphosate (rodent studies) as well as formulated glyphosate-containing products (in human epidemiologic studies) like Roundup as they are sold on the shelf to cancer. Here are the major takeaway points:The association with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) cancer risk is stronger when the study is adjusted for more days of glyphosate use, longer study latency period (time since exposure for cancer to develop), which strengthens the confidence in the results;All three meta-analyses (evaluation of many studies together) show a statistically significant link with NHL cancer (positive confidence intervals), with narrow confidence intervals which strengthens our confidence in the link with cancer. This is true even of the Monsanto-sponsored analysis (Chang and Delzell, 2016), which is almost exactly the same result as the conclusions of the World Health Organization’s global cancer experts (IARC 2016).Most studies are strongly positive for cancer (non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma), even if they are not statistically significant at a 95% confidence level. All would likely show a statistically significant link with cancer at a 90% confidence level.
Since the ATSDR analysis, a more recent meta-analysis that includes the most recent update of the Agricultural Health Study (AHS) along with five case-control studies reported a statistically significant 45% (95% CI: 1.11–1.91) increase in risk of NHL cancers people most highly exposed to glyphosate-based herbicide products (Zhang et al 2019). (See image below, ATSDR Fig 2-4)
For Multiple Myeloma, ATSDR reports similar findings across available studies (See ATSDR, Fig 2-5, p 87).
Given ATSDR’s lucid and comprehensive review of the available epidemiology information, which evaluates the glyphosate-based products that people are exposed to under real-world conditions, it seems to me that anyone not affiliated with the chemical industry or defending the chemical industry would reasonably conclude that these products are linked to cancer.
One could argue how strong the link is, under what exposure conditions, or other aspects, but anyone should be able to see that there is a link. Yet, regulatory agencies in the US and worldwide all seem to have adopted Monsanto’s position that there is no link, largely by dismissing studies that don’t meet the 95% confidence standard – a threshold that is not required by law and is rejected by experts: "It is ludicrous to conclude that the statistically non-significant results showed ‘no association’, when the interval estimate included serious risk increases" (See recent article by over 800 signatories published in Nature 2019). In fact, the only two government agencies that seem to be able to provide an accurate scientific assessment of Monsanto’s carcinogenic products are the non-regulatory health agencies, ATSDR and IARC.
In response to the ATSDR report, a recently-retired EPA official from the Pesticide Office, Tina Levine, was quoted as saying, “There does seem to be an effect. It’s not a large risk [of NHL] but it’s there based on what ATSDR has found… That said, consumer exposures are likely to be very different from professional applicators”. Her comments are consistent with the conclusions of the EPA expert Scientific Advisory Panel that rejected EPA’s “not likely to be carcinogenic” classification, with some Panelists favoring the stronger classification of “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential” (see SAP report, p. 22).
So, how come the EPA Pesticide Office had all the same studies as IARC and ATSDR, but couldn’t find the cancer risk? My previous blog details the split among EPA experts– with the Science Office finding cancer risk, and the Pesticide Office finding none. In addition to many other failings, EPA and other regulatory agencies state that they are only focused on exposures to the general population from food, and specifically are not accounting for routine occupational exposures to pesticide applicators and others (despite the fact that the EPA Pesticide Office is charged with protecting everyone, including farmworkers and pesticide applicators).
Non-cancer effects of glyphosate and formulated products
ATSDR identifies scientific evidence in rodent studies and some human epidemiologic studies linking glyphosate with developmental delays, gastrointestinal effects including nausea and vomiting, kidney and liver toxicity, and eye irritation (ATSDR summary data p. 3-5).
Long-term ongoing health studies conducted by the U.S. National Cancer Institute of over 20 thousand pesticide applicators report that human exposures to glyphosate-containing products is linked to an elevated risk of wheezing, chronic bronchitis, and allergic asthma (ATSDR, Table 2-5, p. 36; Ag Health Study)
Developmental risks reported in studies of farm families identify a link between parental use of glyphosate and an increased risk of neural tube defects, miscarriage, preterm delivery, and small for gestational age (ATSDR Table 2-5, p. 40-41). Although many of these are not statistically significant at a 95% confidence level, they are significant at a 90% confidence level, which should be confident enough to generate regulatory action to protect families wishing to conceive.
ATSDR summarizes a number of animal studies of early-life exposure to glyphosate-based products that report developmental effects including testicular lesions, decreased sperm production, elevated abnormal sperm, decreased testosterone, and skeletal malformations (ATSDR, p. 14).
ATSDR report likely underestimates risks
ATSDR set a Minimum Risk Level (MRL) of 1 mg/kg-day based on a second-hand report from EPA of a Monsanto-sponsored rabbit study that reported gastrointestinal effects following exposure to pure glyphosate. ATSDR used a standard 100-fold uncertainty factor to extrapolate from an animal study to humans, and to account for inter-human variability (for details, see ATSDR Appendix A).
Despite a mountain of good work, the ATSDR report will almost surely underestimate health risks for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:
Raw data and original studies not provided to ATSDR - Importantly, ATSDR didn’t have access to the animal studies (ATSDR, p. 12). Instead, it unfortunately had to rely on EPA Pesticide Office summaries (called Data Evaluation Records or Reports, DERs) of Monsanto-sponsored studies. That’s two steps removed from having access to the raw data, and two layers of unreliability in my opinion. It is also a reason why the epidemiology data is so important to take seriously.
Formulated Products More Toxic than Pure Glyphosate - Ongoing cell-based toxicity tests of the U.S. National Toxicology Program show that the glyphosate-based formulated products including lawn and garden products are more harmful than pure glyphosate, some by over 100-fold (NTP 2018).
Studies in young rodents conducted by the Ramazzini Institute reported that early-life exposure to both pure glyphosate and formulated Roundup mixtures resulted in modifying the gut microbiome in ways that may impair gastrointestinal health or have other long-term adverse health impacts (Mao et al 2018).
However, most of the rodent studies evaluated by ATSDR were on the pure glyphosate, which ignores all the chemicals in the formulated products like Roundup that people are exposed to in the real world, and that are likely to be more toxic. Again, a good reason to take the epidemiology studies more seriously, since they are real-world exposures.
Let ATSDR know what you think- ATSDR is soliciting public comments on its draft Toxicological Profile for glyphosate. Comments may be submitted via Regulations.govuntil July 8, 2019 (Docket ID: ATSDR-2019-0001).
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/jennifer-sass/atsdr-report-confirms-glyphosate-cancer-risks
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So It Turns out That Puberty Could Be Occurring Earlier Due to Our 'Toxic Burden'
Apr 12, 2019 | Glamour
By Christobel Hastings
With the rising trend for natural, organic, fair trade and vegan beauty, many of us are clearing out our makeup bags to ensure our favourite cosmetics are kind on our skin - and good to the planet. But, if we're to take a 360 wellness approach to our wellness[/link], and work towards becoming the healthiest version of ourselves, we need be looking closer at what we're putting into our bodies, too.
A switch in our lifestyle habits couldn't come a moment too soon, according to worrying new research that's come to light in Scientific American, which suggests that American children are undergoing puberty earlier than ever before.
The research explains that while it's difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for the biological advances occurring in prepubescent children, our widespread exposure to synthetic chemicals could be behind the developing trend.
In a 2012 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), American girls who had been exposed to high levels of common household chemicals were found to have their first periods seven months earlier than those with lower exposures.
"This study adds to the growing body of scientific research that exposure to environmental chemicals may be associated with early puberty," said CDC researcher and lead author on the study Danielle Buttke.
In the same year, a study was conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which found African-American boys were starting puberty at around age nine, while Caucasian and Hispanics were starting on average at age 10. In other words, American boys are reaching puberty six months to two years earlier than a few decades ago.
One possible answer could lie in rising levels of obesity. Researchers have identified that by building reserves of fat tissue and kickstarting their reproductive capacities, young people's bodies could be triggering puberty earlier on.
Another potential culprit for the onset of premature puberty could be "hormone disrupting" chemicals, such as Dichlorobenzene, which is classified as a possible human carcinogen, and Bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic chemical in some plastics, which public health researchers believe "mimics" estrogen in the body.
The good news is that there are active steps we can take to reduce the "toxic burden" on our bodies, such as eating organic food, and cutting back on meat and dairy, which contain excess hormonesand antibiotics, and reducing our use of household cleaning products. A bona fide excuse to skip weekend chores and head down to the farmer's market, if you ask us.
https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/early-puberty-toxic-burden
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Chevron Buys Anadarko in $33 Billion Bet on Shale Oil, LNG (3)
Apr 12, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kimberly Yuen
Chevron Corp. agreed to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in a $33 billion bet on the Permian shale-oil region and liquefied natural gas, intensifying a battle with Exxon Mobil Corp. to be America’s top energy company.
Chevron is making a double bet on what many in energy consider the future of Big Oil over the next decade. The deal adds acreage and production in the prolific Permian shale basin of West Texas and south-east New Mexico and also increases Chevron’s exposure to LNG at a time when natural gas is being viewed as the most favored transition fuel in the fight against climate change.
It puts Chevron neck-and-neck with the oil and gas production of Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, both of which have dominated Big Oil over the past decade. Measured by cash flow, Chevron said in a statement it would have generated a combined $36.5 billion with Anadarko last year, slightly ahead of Exxon’s $36 billion. The new company will sell $15 billion to $20 billion of assets from 2020 to 2022, to reduce debt and return cash to investors.
“Consolidation in deep water and the shales makes complete industrial sense,” said Christyan Malek, the head of EMEA oil and gas research at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “It gives the combined entity the ability to high-grade its assets and focus on where the best cash returns are.”
The transaction is the biggest strategic move yet for Michael Wirth, the 58-year-old chemical engineer who became Chevron’s chief executive officer just 15 months ago. He has quickly shaken up the company by announcing an aggressive expansion plan in the Permian.
Chevron will acquire all outstanding shares in Anadarko for $65 each, paying with a mixture of cash and its own stock. That’s a premium of 39 percent to the closing price on Thursday. Anadarko’s shares soared in pre-market trading while those of Chevron fell 5 percent.
Anadarko has long been speculated about as a takeover target for the world’s largest oil companies, offering a suite of assets including a massive LNG facility in Mozambique that is racing against an Exxon project to be the first operating in the country.
This is the biggest takeover in the oil and gas industry since Shell’s 47 billion pound ($61 billion) purchase of BG Group in 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Widening the measure to include chemicals and state-owned companies, both would be eclipsed by Saudi Aramco’s $69 billion acquisition of a majority stake in local petrochemical company Sabic this year.
Chevron said the combined entity would have had daily output of 3.596 million barrels equivalent of oil last year, compared with Shell’s 3.666 million. Exxon reported average production last year of 3.833 million.
Cash-Flow Boost
Investors will receive 0.3869 shares of Chevron and $16.25 in cash for each Anadarko share. Chevron will issue 200 million shares and pay $8 billion in cash. The company said it will also assume about $15 billion of net debt, giving Anadarko an enterprise value of $50 billion.
Chevron expects the deal to add to free cash flow and earnings per share one year after closing, at $60-a-barrel Brent. The company said will boost its share repurchase rate by $1 billion to $5 billion per year upon closing of the deal. It expects the transaction to achieve run-rate cost synergies of $1 billion before tax and capital spending cuts of $1 billion within a year of closing.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year, subject to Anadarko shareholder approval, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Credit Suisse Group AG was financial adviser to Chevron while Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP was legal adviser. Evercore Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised Anadarko alongside law firms Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Vinson & Elkins LLP.
The deal may put pressure on Shell to seek assets in the Permian, where the Anglo-Dutch company has said it wants to grow. Oil executives and bankers had in the past speculated that Shell may buy Anadarko because they have adjacent acreage. Shell has in the past several months held talks with Endeavor Energy Resources LP, the largest privately-owned company in the Permian that bankers say might be valued at $10 billion to $15 billion.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chevron-buys-anadarko-in-33-billion-bet-on-shale-oil-lng-3-2
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Chevron-Anadarko Deal Shows Why Natural Gas Is Big Oil’s Future
Apr 12, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christine Buurma and Alix Steel
Chevron Corp.’s $33 billion deal to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp. underscores how Big Oil is increasingly becoming Big Gas.
The acquisition includes the massive Mozambique LNG project, which would become the country’s first onshore liquefied natural gas export terminal if it starts up before a rival Exxon Mobil Corp. facility. Though Anadarko hadn’t yet made a final investment decision, it inked an agreement earlier this year to sell gas to China’s state-owned CNOOC Ltd.
While crude still drives profits for oil majors, the companies are increasingly turning to gas, the world’s fastest-growing fossil fuel. Gas demand for power generation is soaring, part of a global shift away from dirtier coal and fuel oil as nations move to tackle climate change. LNG supplies are surging worldwide as new export terminals from Australia to the U.S. send cargoes abroad.
Anadarko has a “really nice LNG position that they’re developing in Mozambique, which will complement investments we’ve made over the last decade in Australia and help us grow our LNG portfolio,” Chevron Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said April 12 in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We like the project that they’ve done; we like the resource.”
Mozambique LNG
Chevron’s past efforts to develop multibillion-dollar gas export projects haven’t gone smoothly, however.
The company and Woodside Petroleum Ltd. were partners on Gorgon and Wheatstone, two giant LNG facilities in Western Australia that cost a combined $88 billion, way over the initial budgets, and dominated both companies’ capital expenditure plans for a decade. The companies are also developing Kitimat LNG in British Columbia.
“Our Gorgon project we could have done better,” Wirth said. “We’ve learned some things from that we’d like to bring to bear” on Mozambique.
Oil was still about 61 percent of Chevron’s overall production mix last year, though that’s down from 67 percent five years earlier, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chevron-anadarko-deal-shows-why-natural-gas-is-big-oils-future
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The Energy 202: Here's How Republicans Want to Address a Water Law That's Choking New Pipelines
Apr 12, 2019 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
One of President Trump's biggest energy-related goals is to build more pipelines before he leaves office. But Republicans are concerned the way a piece of half-century-old water pollution law is being used is thwarting those efforts.
So the GOP is launching a double-barreled effort from both the White House and Congress to address a key provision in the Clean Water Act, the nation’s bedrock environmental statute for preventing water pollution.
At issue is the law's Section 401, which gives states the power to disapprove interstate infrastructure projects that they deem potentially harmful to their waterways. Republicans allege that some states— mostly left-leaning ones led by Democrats opposed to increasing the use of coal, oil and natural gas — have abused the provision in recent years to stop the construction of pipelines and other energy infrastructure within their borders.
The tension was on display Wednesday, when Trump flew to oil- and gas-rich Texas to sign an executive order directing the Environmental Protection Agency to review federal rules around states’ ability to issue water permits.
“Too often, badly needed energy infrastructure is being held back by special-interest groups, entrenched bureaucracies and radical activists,” Trump said during a speech this week outside Houston, The Post's Toluse Olorunnipa and Steven Mufson report.
But here's the fine print: “Outdated Federal guidance and regulations regarding section 401 of the Clean Water Act, however, are causing confusion and uncertainty and are hindering the development of energy infrastructure,” Trump’s executive order states.
Trump tasked the agency with tightening the amount of time states have to review water-permit applications as well the “types of conditions that may be appropriate to include in a certification.”
Section 401 says that states must approve or reject projects within a “reasonable period of time (which shall not exceed one year)." In practice, though, projects can last for years in permitting limbo as state-level environmental agencies go back and forth with companies to grapple with technical details.
“These projects that are subject to approval are massive,” said Kimberly Ong, a senior attorney for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposes Trump's executive orders. “They require extremely technical review.”
At the same time this week, the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), introduced legislation that goes a step further by etching into law some of those limits.
“The idea is to use the Clean Water Act for something to do with water,” Barrasso said in an interview.
Barrasso praised Trump’s executive order, but wanted to make sure future administrations could not undo it. “You're trying to codify this stuff to make it into law.”
His bill, for example, would limit states to considering only potential pollution from discharges into waterways when reviewing permit applications — and not from other sources.
That would mean the state of New York would not have been able to reject a proposed 124-mile gas pipeline on the grounds that construction would disturb creeks and streams, as the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D-N.Y.) has done.
The state of Washington, similarly, rejected a water permit for export terminals for coal bound for use outside the state. Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, who is running for president on a plank focused on climate change, denounced Trump’s order as a “dangerous attack” on the environment.
But Trump singled out the pipeline delays in his home state when announcing his administrative action. “We need help with New York,” Trump said. “New York is hurting the country because they are not allowing us to get these pipelines through.”
That pipeline would have helped deliver fracked gas from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale to New England, which often must import liquefied natural gas from abroad during cold winter months.
Yet Trump's executive order may yet still concern some red-state leaders. In a letter before Trump’s announcement, the nonpartisan Western Governors’ Association, which represents 22 governors from 19 Western states and three U.S. territories, warned that overriding state agencies “would inflict serious harm to the division of state and federal authorities established by Congress."
But it is already earning praise from those in the oil and gas industry, who have pressed for years for New York to stop standing in the way of gas pipelines. “If the systems are used, if you will, to obstruct the development of much-needed infrastructure, then we will push, as I know others will, to make sure there’s certainty and predictability in the process,” said then American Petroleum Industry president Jack Gerard last year, singling out New York.
Some hydroelectric dam proposals have ended up waited for a decade or more for state water permits. Those developers are happy about the new push, too.
Linda Church Ciocci, head of the National Hydropower Association, cheered the order for sending “a clear message today that it is no longer acceptable for our nation’s vital hydropower projects to linger in uncertainty for years — at times, a decade or more — without resolution.”
The water is reversing the usual roles of the two parties, as Democrats find themselves defending states’ right to halt development within their borders and Republicans calling for federal regulators to play a bigger role in dictating state decision-making.
“We will all need to stand by a commitment to this federal-state partnership,” Thomas R. Carper (Del.), the top Democrat on Barrasso's committee, which oversees the EPA, said in a speech earlier this week to state regulators.
“I — and I’m sure you — see many other instances where cooperative federalism and respect for states’ rights doesn’t mean the same thing to this administration as it does to those of you who are actually doing the work of environmental protection.”
Like with other Trump-era environmental rules, some legal experts expect whatever new rules the EPA issues to face significant courtroom challenges on administrative-law grounds.
“There are a number of ways it can be attacked,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. “What Trump wants to do is cut the states out because they’re a pain in the neck.”
For now, though, environmental groups appear to be holding their legal fire until the EPA rolls out actual regulations. Trump ordered the rules to be finalized within the next 13 months
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/04/12/the-energy-202-here-s-how-republicans-want-to-address-a-water-law-that-s-choking-new-pipelines/5caf7268a7a0a475985bd3fa/?utm_term=.446a420e467a
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Funding Set for Indiana Plastics-To-Fuel Plant
Apr 11, 2019 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
Brightmark Energy LLC now has financing in place for a commercial scale plastics-to-fuel plant in Indiana.
The San Francisco-based company has closed on $260 million in financing, including $185 million in Indiana green bonds, to construct the facility in Ashley, Ind.
Brightmark is the controlling shareholder of RES Polyflow LLC, which developed a process to convert used plastics into transportation fuel and other products, the company said.
"The Ashley facility will be the first of its kind to take mixed waste single-use plastics and convert them into usable products at commercial scale," Brightmark said in a statement.
The new location will convert mixed plastics into ultra-low sulfur diesel and naphtha blend stocks as well as commercial grade wax.
Initial planned capacity is 100,000 tons of mixed plastics.
"We are excited about the market's confidence in the validity of this technology to economically convert single-use plastics for new uses," said Bob Powell, CEO of Brightmark Energy and RES Polyflow. "This technology provides a strong incentive for diverting single use plastics away from oceans, waterways, communities and landfills by creating reusable value."
Brightmark took a majority stake in RES Polyflow last fall.
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190411/NEWS/190417348/funding-set-for-indiana-plastics-to-fuel-plant?CSAuthResp=1%3A273716141375639%3A284601%3A38%3A24%3Aapproved%3A859FC2245644B86C1E39FBE6AB134586
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Moody's: Gas Pipeline Shortages Will Hamper Permian Producers Through 2020
Apr 12, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum
The lack of natural gas pipelines from the booming Permian Basin will hinder oil producers in the region at least deep into 2020, according to a new report from Moody's Investor Service.
Record-high crude oil production from the Permian also brings with it large surpluses of associated natural gas output that has spiked so high the oil companies are paying to have the gas shipped away at a loss. Companies also are burning, or flaring, more Permian gas into the atmosphere than ever, contributing to methane pollution and climate change.
There's a rush to bring more oil pipelines online to carry the crude to refining and port hubs near Houston and Corpus Christi, but there are fewer natural gas pipeline projects underway. Houston-based Kinder Morgan is leading the two biggest gas pipeline projects, but the lack of gas pipeline capacity will continue at least through most of 2020, Moody's said.
While the U.S. benchmark for natural gas pricing is sitting above $2.50 per million British thermal units, the Permian gas is deeply discounted and has even dipped into record-low negative pricing at times this year.
"Oil pipelines going into service in the second half of 2019 will alleviate the oil bottleneck and spur further oil production — thereby further aggravating the shortfall in natural gas takeaway capacity," the Moody's report said, noting that rising crude volumes carry with them more associated gas production.
Moody's estimates the Permian gas surpluses will keep the national benchmark below $3.50 per million British thermal units for at least the next few years.
While the Permian is churning out more than 4 million barrels of oil a day - about one-third of the nation's total crude output - the Permian also is pumping out lots of natural gas to the equivalent of about 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent daily.
That makes the Permian's the nation's second-largest gas producer after the Appalachian region with the Marcellus and Utica shale plays primarily in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
Companies are in the Permian to produce oil and everything else is essentially considered ancillary output.
Oil producers in the Permian won't be free and clear of the gas problem until the natural gas pipeline problems are solved.
"Once the bottlenecks disappear and natural gas prices begin to improve, E&P companies in the Permian will get a modest benefit from natural gas revenue," Moody's said.
"But new midstream natural gas infrastructure will especially benefit Permian oil and gas producers by freeing them to expand their oil-drilling programs and produce more higher-margin liquids with less of a burden of dealing with associated gas in the process," the report concluded.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Moody-s-Gas-pipeline-shortages-will-hamper-13760738.php?cmpid=ffcp
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Chamber’s GEI: US Voters Favor Energy Innovation over Regulation
Apr 12, 2019 | Oil & Gas Journal
By Nick Snow
Most US voters prefer a national energy strategy that recognizes and improves technologies that already have contributed to the country’s emissions reductions in the last 10 years to policies that are centered on expanded government regulation, a survey commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute (GEI) found.
“When it comes to solutions, we found that Americans favor an innovation over a regulatory approach. That’s one reason why focusing on improving energy technology would be more productive than increasing regulations,” GEI Acting Pres. Christopher Guith told reporters in an Apr. 11 teleconference.
The telephone survey, conducted Mar. 7-12 of 1,000 likely 2020 voters by FTI Consulting, found that 79% of the respondents believed investing more in technology and innovation would be the most effective way to address climate change compared with 55% who favored more government regulation.
“Voters overwhelmingly want feasible, sensible energy policies that work for all Americans,” said Kristy Pultorak, senior digital and insights director at FTI Consulting. “They want to keep energy more affordable for taxpayers. We asked them how much more they would be willing to pay to combat greenhouse gas emissions over the next year. Sixty-four percent said they’d be willing to pay only less than $10/month more.”
GEI released the survey’s results as it launched its “Cleaner, Stronger Energy and Climate Agenda,” which emphasizes supporting technology and innovation over increasing government regulation. The survey found that 73% of the survey’s respondents preferred the first approach compared with 21% who favored the Green New Deal, which environmental organizations and similar groups support.
Guith noted that when the US Chamber started what has become GEI 11 years ago, innovation and technology were immediately identified as effective tools. “When we started this process 6 months ago, Americans did not seem to be aware of how much has invested already to keep their lights on and their cars and trucks running without having a major impact on the environment,” he said.
“We’re going to continue supporting increased federal spending on technologies nearly every scientific group has identified as necessary to combat global climate change. There’s some low-hanging fruit there, and the Chamber wants more policymakers to identify and pursue it,” Guith said.
These priorities have bipartisan support and provide a meaningful path to continue reducing emissions, he said. “We must continue to make progress and develop these technologies because we don’t have them now, and we will need them in the next 40 years,” Guith said.
https://www.ogj.com/articles/2019/04/chamber-s-gei-us-voters-favor-energy-innovation-over-regulation.html
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Ewire: Wheeler Blasts Democratic States on Energy Issues
Apr 12, 2019 | Inside EPA
EPA chief Andrew Wheeler is blasting the actions of several high-profile Democratic governors on energy and environment issues, charging that they are playing politics or acting beyond their authority when blocking gas and coal infrastructure or imposing strict vehicle fuel economy limits.
Much of the conflict relates to President Donald Trump's recent executive order directing EPA to revise its guidance on Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401, a provision that allows states to assess the water quality effects of major federal projects but which Republicans and industry say has been abused in several instances.
In announcing the order April 10, Trump criticized New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for blocking a 401 permit for the Constitution Pipeline that would transport fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania to the Empire State, noting that the Northeast has at certain points had to rely on Russian gas imports.
During an April 11 interview with Reuters, Wheeler echoed the message. “We are importing Russian natural gas which is not produced in an environmentally conscious manner. If the states that are blocking the pipelines were truly concerned about the environment, they would look to where the natural gas would be coming from. . . . I think it’s very short-sighted,” he said.
He also blasted Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee (D) -- who is running a climate-focused presidential campaign -- for rejecting a 401 certification for a major coal export terminal -- a move that is currently limiting the prospects for exports of Powder River Basin coal to Asia.
“They are trying to make international environmental policy,” Wheeler said. “They’re trying to dictate to the world how much coal is used.”
And the EPA chief also renewed his long-running row with California over vehicle greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards. The agency is planning a sharp rollback of Obama-era limits, coupled with preempting the Golden State from enforcing tougher standards.
But, according to Wheeler, California officials are the ones to blame for a failure to reach a deal on changes to the standards. He has claimed the state did not submit a serious counter-proposal to the federal plan.
“This is so much more about politics for the state of California than it is protecting the environment,” Wheeler told Reuters.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-wheeler-blasts-democratic-states-energy-issues
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Safety Advocates Warn Against Trump's LNG `Bomb Train'
Apr 12, 2019 | Supply Chain Brain
President Donald Trump wants to allow natural gas to be shipped in railroad cars, a move that would open new markets hungry for the fuel but could risk catastrophic accidents if one were to derail.
Trump on Wednesday ordered the Transportation Department to write a new rule permitting super-chilled natural gas to be shipped in specialty tank cars. The order follows a multiyear lobbying campaign by railroads and natural gas advocates, who argue it is needed to serve customers in the U.S. Northeast, where there aren’t enough pipelines, and making it possible to use the gas to power ships and trains.
“There are all sorts of new opportunities where you can use rail much more efficiently,” said Charlie Riedl, head of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas trade group.
The effort, which could help offset falling rail shipments of coal, mirrors how the oil industry turned to trains to ship crude when there weren’t enough pipelines to meet demand. But a series of spills and other accidents — including a runaway oil train that derailed and killed more than 40 people in a small Quebec town in 2013 — have safety advocates warning against putting gas on the rails.
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” said Emily Jeffers, a staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, who added that Trump’s initiative evokes earlier concerns about crude-filled “bomb trains” traveling through American cities. “You’re transporting an extraordinarily flammable and dangerous substance through highly populated areas with basically no environmental protection.”
LNG is natural gas that has been chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 167 Celsius) in a process that removes water, carbon dioxide and other compounds, leaving mostly methane in a fluid that takes up less than 1/600th the space it previously occupied as a gas. It is already shipped across oceans around the globe, ferried across the U.S. in trucks and stashed in storage tanks to ensure natural gas is on hand when demand escalates.
LNG does not burn on its own, and it can’t ignite in its liquefied state. The risk comes if a tank car were ruptured and LNG were exposed to the air, triggering the LNG to rapidly convert back into a flammable gas and evaporate.
City Risks
Fred Millar, an independent rail consultant working with citizen groups opposed to moving LNG by trains, says Trump’s policy change would pose “an unprecedented new level of risk for American cities,” and is being pursued hastily “because of enormous pressure to sell our fracked gas.”
Millar warns that LNG is especially hazardous because of its ability to easily warm to a vigorous boil, forming a flammable gas cloud that can erupt into an unquenchable fire. A 1944 explosion in Cleveland killed more than 100 people after liquefied natural gas from an East Ohio Gas Co. storage tank seeped into the city’s sewer system and ignited, leveling homes and businesses across several city blocks, he said.
However, supporters of rail transport stress that natural gas dissipates rapidly and has such a narrow ignition window it is only able to ignite when mixed with air at a ratio of about 5 to 15 percent, unlike other flammable materials carried by rail. LNG won’t dissolve in water and, if spilled, generally evaporates, leaving no residue behind.
“It’s really hard to even get it to ignite to begin with in a gaseous format, let alone in a liquid format,” the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas’s Riedl said.
The Association of American Railroads emphasizes that LNG is “similar in all relevant properties to other hazardous materials that are currently authorized to be transported by rail.” Besides crude oil, hydrogen chloride and other liquefied gases are now widely transported over American train tracks.
There have been only two accidental releases of cryogenic liquids approved for U.S. rail transport in DOT-113 tank cars in the past 16 years, the association said in a 2017 petition asking regulators to allow the LNG shipments. Railroad group representatives did not respond to emails requesting comment.
“The record reflects that railroads transport cryogenic liquids very safely,” and “rail is undeniably safer” than transporting LNG in trucks, the group said.
Trains already move some liquefied natural gas in North America. The Obama administration in 2015 authorized the Alaska Railroad Corp. to ship LNG using portable containers on flatcars. Canada’s transportation department also allows LNG to be shipped in DOT-113 tank cars.
Open Markets
The policy change could expand existing gas markets and open up new ones. A prime opportunity is creating a new avenue for getting natural gas to New England, where high winter demand and limited pipeline capacity have caused prices to rise sharply and lured cargoes from Russia. The railroad association said some shippers are interested in transporting LNG by rail from the prolific Marcellus shale formation in Pennsylvania to New England, as well as on routes between the U.S. and Mexico.
Rail shipments could out-compete other sources of LNG in the region, analysts said, even factoring in added costs to liquefy natural gas and transport it in tank cars. New England imported six cargoes of LNG at an average price of $8.88 per million British Thermal Units in January, even though the same quantity of Appalachian natural gas traded at $3.25.
Maritime Fuel
“That means liquefaction and transport costs of over $5 would still make it economic to liquefy U.S. gas and ship it by rail to New England,” said Anastacia Dialynas, a BNEF oil and gas analyst.
Rail transport could similarly ease bottlenecks getting Permian gas from West Texas and New Mexico to the U.S. Gulf Coast, Riedl said.
Industry leaders point to other possibilities, including serving burgeoning demand for LNG as a maritime fuel, amid looming international restrictions on high-sulfur diesel. Rail shipments of LNG could enable the creation of new fueling locations at ports in Florida and the U.S. West Coast, without requiring expensive new liquefaction infrastructure.
It could take more than a year for the Transportation Department to write new rules governing LNG in tank cars.
https://www.supplychainbrain.com/articles/29580-trump-plan-to-ship-natural-gas-by-rail-stokes-bomb-train-fears
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Latest EPA Climate Pollution Data Shows Disturbing Lack of Progress
Apr 12, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Erica Morehouse
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday reported that that the US made essentially no progress on climate pollution — an insignificant drop of 0.5% — even as scientists warn that without major reductions in emissions, global temperatures are on a dangerous track to increase well above 2 degrees Celsius.
Other data indicates that since 2017, the last year covered by this report, emissions have actually begun to rise. The Energy Information Agency and Rhodium Group estimate that in 2018 climate pollution from energy combustion rose 2.8 and 3.4%, respectively.
As climate pollution remains stubbornly high, the Trump administration has worked to undermine limits on carbon pollution, roll back rules on highly potent methane emissions and ducked international obligations to deal with climate change. This new report is another sign that without bold action, climate pollution will cause worsening impacts on our economy, health and future.
The dismal national climate pollution numbers contrast with pollution reductions underway in many states that have put in place aggressive policies to limit emissions and move towards clean energy even while the federal government sits on the sidelines.
California is aggressively addressing climate pollution with multiple policies including a cap on climate pollution since 2013. From 2016 to 2017 California’s emissions decline was almost three times that of the U.S. as a whole. But even more importantly, California has seen emissions decline every year since the great recession whereas trends in the U.S. have vacillated between increases and decreases from year to year. The state has been able to achieve these reductions while both growing its economy and adding jobs faster than the national average.
Similarly, power sector emissions in the nine New England states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) have declined dramatically in the ten years of the program with a net economic benefit of $1.4 billion and 14,500 additional job-years in the last three years alone. Several other states are now seeking to link with RGGI and there are additional, significant carbon reductions planned in the region through 2030.
Many states are also pursuing opportunities for pollution reductions from transportation, with nine states and the District of Columbia announcing their participation in the Transportation & Climate Initiative process to establish a regional program that limits greenhouse gas pollution from the transportation sector.
The best science shows that in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must achieve net-zero climate pollution by 2050. Unfortunately, the latest data from EPA and elsewhere shows we’re not yet on the trajectory we need to be to get there. That’s why, for the sake of our children and future generations, we need our leaders at all levels of government to step up, take climate change seriously, and set clear limits on pollution.
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2019/04/12/latest-epa-climate-pollution-data-shows-disturbing-lack-of-progress/
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Emissions Fell a Half-Percent in 2017 — EPA
Apr 12, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nick Sobczyk
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell by a half-percent during President Trump's first year in office, according to EPA's final analysis for 2017.
That included a 4.25% drop in the power sector, coinciding with a 1.2% increase in transportation-related emissions, now the country's top source of planet-warming emissions.
Those drops are due in part to falling fossil fuel combustion, largely the result of declining coal generation and increased use of natural gas and renewables, as well as relatively mild weather that led to decreased electricity use, EPA found.
The report, released yesterday, is the final version of EPA's "Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2017."
The overall reduction is marginally different from a draft version of the document, which is mandated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, that the agency published in the Federal Register in February (Greenwire, Feb. 12).
EPA sold the overall reductions as a win for industry innovation, pointing to numbers that show a 13% drop in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 to 2017.
In the power sector, previously the nation's top emitter, emissions have fallen nearly 28% in the same period, according to EPA's analysis.
Methane emissions were up slightly in 2017, but they have fallen by 15.8% since 1990, which EPA attributed in part to decreasing waste from natural gas transmission and storage.
Transportation emissions, however, continue to rise, and 2017 emissions overall were still up 1.3% compared with 1990.
Emissions of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, were up 2.1% in 2017 compared with the previous year.
Courts have scrapped Obama-era efforts to phase out the potent greenhouse gases, used for cooling and refrigeration, part of the previous administration's attempt to comply with a global agreement on HFCs known as the Kigali Amendment.
The Trump administration has not submitted the agreement for Senate approval and looks unlikely to do so, despite support from manufacturers and more than a dozen GOP senators.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/12/stories/1060155831
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