Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - April 19, 2019
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NYC Adds Fee to Paper Bags in Addition to Plastic Bag Ban
Apr 19, 2019 | Crain's New York Business (In Plastics News)
By Will Bredderman
The New York City Council is doubling down on the state of New York's ban on plastic bags by passing legislation April 18 that imposes a 5-cent surcharge on paper bags at grocery stores. The bill dovetails with the state law, which... -
GMA Seeks Review of Recycling System
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
A group representing food, beverage and consumer products companies is calling for a “comprehensive review and overhaul” of the country's recycling system after a survey it conducted found barriers to overcoming problems plaguing... -
EPA Urges Court To Reject Challenge To Mercury Inventory, Waivers
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA is urging a federal appellate court to dismiss a suit brought by states and environmentalists seeking to strengthen the agency's June 2018 mercury inventory and repeal the categories of reporting waivers it included, arguing that its... -
Court Orders EPA to Respond to Chlorpyrifos Concerns
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
EPA has 90 days to respond to objections to its continued approval of the controversial pesticide chlorpyrifos. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered the agency to promptly complete its review of the comments filed... -
NRDC Says Mexichem Ruling Does Not Block Suit on HFC Guide
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and a coalition of states are arguing that an appellate court's recent partial vacatur of a 2016 EPA rule limiting climate-warming hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants should not block their... -
Honeywell to Clean up Pollution Near Former N.C. Plant
Apr 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Federal authorities say they've reached a proposed settlement with two companies for the cleanup of a former chemical plant near the Cape Fear River. The Justice Department and EPA said in a news release yesterday that the... -
Honeywell, International Paper Commit to $16.2m Cleanup of Contaminated Site in NC
Apr 19, 2019 | Charlotte Business Journal
By John Downey
Honeywell International Inc. and International Paper Co. have signed a consent decree with federal regulators to clean up mercury, PCBs and other contaminants from an EPA Superfund site in North Carolina. The settlement documents... -
Feature: Does the EU Pic Regulation Provide 'Consent' to Outsource Harm?
Apr 19, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
EU law allows companies to legally transport dangerous substances to developing countries. The chemical ethylene oxide made US headlines in February, after the Illinois EPA ordered a Sterigenics’ medical supply sterilisation plant... -
FERC Approves 2 Export Projects Despite Climate Rift
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Rod Kuckro
As regulators yesterday approved two liquefied natural gas export projects, the schism among the four members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over whether to address carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change... -
State Defends South Dakota Pipeline Protest Legislation
Apr 19, 2019 | AP (In Washington Post)
By Blake Nicholson
South Dakota’s governor and attorney general are asking a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging a new law that aims to prevent disruptive demonstrations against the Keystone XL pipeline if it’s built. The law allows officials to... -
N.C. Coastal Panel Opposes Atlantic Exploration
Apr 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
North Carolina's coastal regulatory board says risks associated with offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling off the Atlantic coast aren't worth threats to the tourism and fishing economies and the environment. The state Coastal... -
NAFTA 2.0 to Have 'Little Impact' on Energy Sector — Report
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
President Trump's replacement treaty for the North American Free Trade Agreement will have minor effects on the U.S. energy sector, an independent federal review has concluded. The U.S. International Trade Commission report... -
Anti-Energy Lawsuits, Pushed by Activists, Don’t Help Climate or California
Apr 19, 2019 | Real Clear Energy
By Theresa Harvey
California has become central to the world-wide climate change debate, as some local officials, spurred on by trial attorneys and activists have waged an aggressive legal campaign against energy manufacturers. The public deserves... -
Green Deals Won’t Save the World, But Access to Energy Will
Apr 18, 2019 | Real Clear Energy
By Jason Isaac
Around the world, nearly a billion people still don’t have access to electricity. Though we take it for granted in the United States, energy isn’t a readily accessible luxury across the planet. It’s essential for clean water, modern medical... -
EPA Must Face Claims It Didn’t Warn of Flint Water Health Risks
Apr 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Daniel Sedian
The U.S. government isn’t immune from a lawsuit accusing the EPA of failing to timely respond and warn residents of Flint, Mich., about health risks in its water supply, a federal court ruled. The Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged... -
Democrats Urge 2020 Presidential Candidates To Prioritize Climate Change
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Key Democratic lawmakers are urging their party's presidential candidates to make climate change a top issue in the 2020 election, compared to its lower-tier status in prior campaigns, arguing that would draw a sharp contrast with... -
NYC Council Targets Real Estate With Sweeping Emissions Bills
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By David Iaconangelo
The New York City Council approved a landmark package of climate bills yesterday that council members called the most ambitious emissions-cutting policies ever undertaken by a city. The package's centerpiece targets the building... -
Environmentalists See Victory With Green New Deal Blitz
Apr 19, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Environmentalists and lawmakers are praising a Democratic messaging blitz that they say has put the problem of global warming back at the forefront of the national conversation. Since Democrats took back control of the House... -
A Climate Change Solution Slowly Gains Ground
Apr 19, 2019 | Washington Post
By Steven Mufson
At the end of a cul-de-sac called Fresh Way, two bright green structures the size of shipping containers gleam in the warm sunlight, quietly sucking from the air the carbon dioxide that is warming the planet. One structure houses...
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NYC Adds Fee to Paper Bags in Addition to Plastic Bag Ban
Apr 19, 2019 | Crain's New York Business (In Plastics News)
By Will Bredderman
The New York City Council is doubling down on the state of New York's ban on plastic bags by passing legislation April 18 that imposes a 5-cent surcharge on paper bags at grocery stores.
The bill dovetails with the state law, which allows localities to place a tax on tree-based sacks, and split the resulting revenues with the state.
In 2016 the city had voted to place a 5-cent fee on paper and plastic alike but Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature blocked the bill under pressure from conservative forces.
"This is a big day for climate justice," said Manhattan Councilwoman Margaret Chin, a co-sponsor of the bill. "We are excited that Albany has finally heard our call to take a meaningful action."
Chin noted paper bags are in fact 40 percent heavier than plastic bags, making them in some ways more taxing on the strained municipal sanitation system.
The bill includes carve-outs for families receiving public assistance. But Republican Councilman Joseph Borelli of Staten Island argued the bill would only create further burdens for New Yorkers who are neither wealthy nor poor.
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190419/NEWS/190401662/nyc-adds-fee-to-paper-bags-in-addition-to-plastic-bag-ban
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GMA Seeks Review of Recycling System
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
A group representing food, beverage and consumer products companies is calling for a “comprehensive review and overhaul” of the country's recycling system after a survey it conducted found barriers to overcoming problems plaguing the system even as the sector moves toward more sustainable products through reduced packaging, increased recyclability and manufacturing with greater recycled content.
In a recently released report titled “Reduce. Reuse. Confuse.,” the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) concluded that “the problems with America's recycling system -- chiefly confusion, contamination and cost -- are real and, if left unaddressed, threaten to undermine our nation's environmental progress.”
The report touts commitments by the consumer packaged goods companies, for instance noting that of the largest such companies, 80 percent have pledged to produce 100 percent recyclable, reusable or compostable packaging by 2030.
But it cites obstacles to the industry making progress in the recycling realm and the need for other stakeholders, such as governments, citizens and private companies, to work toward fixes.
The commitments and innovation by these companies are not enough, nor is American consumers' increasing environmental consciousness or their demand for sustainable products, it says. For the United States to meet its environmental goals, “it is time for a comprehensive review and overhaul of the broken recycling system that weakens efforts to create a more sustainable planet,” it says.
The report calls for all stakeholders, including public and private entities and individual consumers, to work toward fixing the problems plaguing the system.
In particular, the report points to obstacles such as China's National Sword policy, implemented last year, that has effectively blocked the United States from sending vast amounts of its recyclables, particularly mixed paper and plastic, to China for processing.
Under its National Sword policy, China severely restricted the amount of food waste and other contamination allowed in paper, plastic and other recyclables that it was importing for processing.
That policy “sent America's recycling system into a tailspin,” the report says, noting for instance that the National League of Cities reported that while in 2017, 64 percent of recyclables offered a reasonable return, that number fell to just 35 percent in 2018.
EPA has also sought to address fallout from China's policy, urging local governments and recycling companies to improve the quality of municipal waste materials slated for recycling by limiting food waste and other non-recyclable “contamination” in an effort to bolster the sagging domestic industry.
Another barrier GMA identifies is confusing recycling symbols -- with fewer than half of respondents in the report's survey properly identifying even one of four recycling symbols correctly, it says.
Also, single stream recycling, where consumers place recyclable items in a single bin, has led to so-called aspirational recycling -- where the consumer hopes an item is recyclable -- and has resulted in greater rates of contaminated recyclables. Contamination can include food residue, plastic bags or glass shards that can ruin the surrounding recyclables.
“The National Waste and Recycling Association estimates 25 percent of recycling is contaminated, far greater than seven percent, just a decade ago,” the report says.
An additional barrier is the lack of uniformity among municipalities across the country on recycling rules. For example, one county in Virginia accepts pizza boxes as recyclable, while its neighboring county does not, it says.
“Clearing up the rampant confusion around recycling rules is among the best ways to reduce contamination and make recycling more economically viable,” the report says. It notes that the majority of respondents in its survey say “more standardized rules at the national (46 percent) or state (28 percent) level would bring greater clarity to recycling.”
The report says the “American recycling system is at a crossroads: allow the problems to calcify or bring stakeholders together to enact change.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/gma-seeks-review-recycling-system
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EPA Urges Court To Reject Challenge To Mercury Inventory, Waivers
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA is urging a federal appellate court to dismiss a suit brought by states and environmentalists seeking to strengthen the agency's June 2018 mercury inventory and repeal the categories of reporting waivers it included, arguing that its rule met requirements that Congress included in its reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
“EPA designed its mercury inventory reporting rule to meet its statutory duties under [TSCA], while complementing existing sources of information, and minimizing data collection and reporting burdens. This approach was logical. And it falls well within the broad discretion afforded EPA under TSCA,” EPA argues in its April 17 response to the petitioners' suit.
“Petitioners ask this Court to vacate portions of the mercury inventory reporting rule. Their request is based on a distorted and selective reading of TSCA’s requirements,” EPA's brief adds.
EPA's June 2018 final rule creating an inventory of mercury supply, use and trade exempts data that has already been reported to an existing database, known as the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse (IMERC), that is run by 13 states, including Vermont.
EPA's rule under TSCA section 8(b)(10)(D) is one of a series of actions the agency was required to take within two years of TSCA's 2016 update. It requires reporting from manufacturers of mercury or mercury-added products to support an inventory of mercury supply, use and trade in the United States.
While EPA says that the inventory will inform regulation to further reduce mercury use, the rule did not propose any such steps at its issuance. The rule is also intended to help the United States comply with its international obligations to regulate mercury under the United Nations' Minamata Convention on Mercury, signed by the Obama administration. The treaty took effect in August 2017.
But EPA's rule rejected several calls from the states that had sought to either scrap the waivers or harmonize state and federal reporting to ensure a comprehensive national database. Specifically, EPA's rule exempts from reporting certain companies who incorporate components containing mercury in their products and also exempts companies who manufacture quantities of mercury in excess of requirements for reporting under EPA's existing Chemical Data Reporting Rule (CDR).
The “Reporting Requirements for the TSCA Mercury Inventory” rule says that even though there is a “non-alignment” of data in existing state and federal programs, the agency believes it can still create a “totality of available data” to adequately monitor mercury trends.
Appellate Suit
Both Vermont and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued EPA over the rule, a consolidated case now being heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
Vermont argues in its Dec. 10 brief that EPA's decision to exempt certain categories from reporting violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) “because the exemptions create new gaps in information in contradiction of Congress’s intent to fill those gaps.”
As a result, the state says, EPA’s decision is arbitrary and capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law.”
Vermont says the exemptions the agency allowed “do not align with the primary purpose of” the updated TSCA, which “requires EPA to create a new, national inventory of mercury-containing products in U.S. Commerce” and “specifically directed EPA to 'coordinate the reporting' of the mercury inventory with IMERC.”
Vermont also argues that EPA's exemptions “hinder” its and the rest of the IMERC states' abilities to enforce their own existing laws and fulfill federal obligations.
“Only EPA is capable of ensuring the level of compliance necessary to produce a complete and accurate inventory of mercury supply, use, and trade in the United States because it has broad enforcement power and resources ... States are incapable of collecting the same reporting data from the complete universe of mercury-added products. The complete federal inventory that Congress demands in the TSCA balances the shortcomings of state-level enforcement.”
Similarly, NRDC argues in its Dec. 7 brief that EPA's exemptions “ensure that EPA will once again fail to compile an accurate, comprehensive inventory,” are unlawful, “and must be set aside.”
NRDC says that EPA's exemption for components is “foreclosed” by TSCA. And it argues that the second exemption, which amends EPA's prior existing CDR rule, “exceeds the limited discretion TSCA affords EPA. … there is nothing 'unnecessary or duplicative' about the data required under [CDR] from manufacturers and importers who are also subject to the CDR program.
Vermont and NRDC's arguments are supported by a Dec. 28 amicus brief from Oregon, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington.
EPA Discretion
EPA, however, argues that the inventory rule it finalized meets TSCA and is within the discretion Congress allowed it in the statute.
“When read in full, the relevant provisions of TSCA expressly confer on EPA discretion to decide what information to collect under the mercury inventory reporting rule and when to collect it. EPA reasonably exercised this discretion by focusing reporting requirements on those manufacturers and importers that actually use mercury in a manufacturing process or who insert mercury into products in the first instance,” EPA's reply states.
“The Agency supported its decision with a reasoned rationale, one based on a sound interpretation of the statute’s text, including the directive to avoid duplicative reporting, and on practical considerations of regulatory efficiency.”
EPA argues that TSCA section 8(a)(5)(A) requires it, “to the extent feasible” to “not require reporting which is unnecessary or duplicative.”
As one example, EPA argues that its CDR exemption eliminates duplicative reporting for those companies that would otherwise be required to report mercury uses to EPA twice, through the inventory and through CDR. “Both the CDR rule and mercury inventory reporting rule require mercury manufacturers to report the quantity of mercury that they manufacture. Unlike the CDR rule, however, the mercury inventory reporting rule has no reporting threshold. ... So the universe of reporters subject to the mercury inventory reporting rule is much broader than under the CDR rule. A handful of persons are subject to both programs. … those CDR reporters are 'not categorically exempt from the mercury inventory reporting requirements,' and must still report other information, including the amount of mercury that they store or distribute in commerce.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-urges-court-reject-challenge-mercury-inventory-waivers
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Court Orders EPA to Respond to Chlorpyrifos Concerns
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
EPA has 90 days to respond to objections to its continued approval of the controversial pesticide chlorpyrifos.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered the agency to promptly complete its review of the comments filed by environmentalists, farmworkers' groups and others opposed to EPA's reversal of earlier plans to ban the use of the chemical on food crops.
A three-judge panel ordered EPA to ban the farm chemical last year, but the 9th Circuit agreed to revisit that decision this year before a larger group of judges.
During oral arguments in March, the League of United Latin American Citizens and other groups urged the court to either require EPA to ban chlorpyrifos or, at the very least, require the agency to process administrative objections they had filed.
The 9th Circuit did the latter, concluding the order was appropriate "considering the history and chronology of this matter and the nature of the claims."
Several judges expressed frustration during oral arguments that EPA had apparently dragged its feet on the administrative process, making it difficult for proponents of a pesticide ban to get into court (Greenwire, March 27).
"We commend the court for this ruling as it forces the EPA to stop stalling," Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman, who argued the case, said in a statement.
Today's order means EPA must respond to the groups' objections by mid-July. Once it does, they will have the opportunity to go back to court to challenge the outcome. The order stipulates that the larger panel of 9th Circuit judges will retain jurisdiction over the case and related litigation.
"The law and the science are clear — this dangerous nerve poison does not belong on our food or in our fields," Erik Olson, head of the health and food program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. "We are pleased the court is holding the Trump administration's feet to the fire and ordering EPA to address our objections to the continued use of this toxic pesticide.
"After 12 years of foot-dragging," he continued, "it's past time for EPA to protect our kids and agricultural communities by banning chlorpyrifos."
EPA did not respond to a request for comment.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/19/stories/1060183095
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NRDC Says Mexichem Ruling Does Not Block Suit on HFC Guide
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and a coalition of states are arguing that an appellate court's recent partial vacatur of a 2016 EPA rule limiting climate-warming hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants should not block their pending challenge to an EPA guidance document related to HFCs.
The agency says it issued the April 2018 guidance to implement the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's August 2017 decision in Mexichem Fluor v. EPA, which struck down part of the Obama EPA's 2015 rule intended to curb HFC use.
The court in an April 5 ruling in a case known as Mexichem II extended its prior ruling to the 2016 rule, which sought to add a set of new HFC limitations.
But NRDC and the New York-led states charge that the guidance goes too far because it pledged not to enforce the 2015 rule in its entirety, without notice and comment.
And in an April 16 letter to the D.C. Circuit, they say Mexichem II highlights similar problems with the agency's stance.
Specifically, they note that both court rulings blocked EPA from requiring manufacturers to “replace HFCs that were previously and lawfully installed as substitutes for ozone-depleting substances.” However, both rulings left intact agency restrictions on HFCs for those who are still using ozone-depleting chemicals, with the latter ruling finding those provisions to be “well-reasoned.”
“In both decisions the vacatur was only partial, and the Court upheld and left intact the remainder of the rules,” the environmentalist and state letter says. “Thus, both decisions contradict EPA’s contention in the present case that the Court 'did not say that any aspect of the 2015 Rule would remain in force.'”
In an April 18 response letter, HFC producers Mexichem Fluor and Arkema argue that the Mexichem II ruling was an “unpublished summary order,” and thus “cannot be informative on the questions at issue here about the scope and consequences of the Mexichem I remedy.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/nrdc-says-mexichem-ruling-does-not-block-suit-hfc-guide
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Honeywell to Clean up Pollution Near Former N.C. Plant
Apr 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Federal authorities say they've reached a proposed settlement with two companies for the cleanup of a former chemical plant near the Cape Fear River.
The Justice Department and EPA said in a news release yesterday that the settlement was reached with Honeywell International Inc. and International Paper Co. The companies have agreed to treat, store and dispose of soils and sediments contaminated by metals that include mercury and PCBs.
The settlement says that from 1963 to 2000, the LCP-Holtrachem plant made chemicals such as sodium hydroxide, liquid chlorine, hydrogen gas, liquid bleach and hydrochloric acid in Riegelwood in Columbus County, adjacent to the Cape Fear River.
A federal court must approve the settlement.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/19/stories/1060182445
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Honeywell, International Paper Commit to $16.2m Cleanup of Contaminated Site in NC
Apr 19, 2019 | Charlotte Business Journal
By John Downey
Honeywell International Inc. and International Paper Co. have signed a consent decree with federal regulators to clean up mercury, PCBs and other contaminants from an EPA Superfund site in North Carolina.
The settlement documents set the initial “estimated cost of the work” at $16.2 million. The consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency was signed April 14. It was filed Thursday, along with a complaint the U.S. Department of Justice filed to recover the costs of cleaning up contamination on 24 acres that Honeywell (NYSE: HON) owns on the Cape Fear River in Columbus County.
There will be a 30-day period for public comment on the proposed settlement.
By the terms of the agreement, Honeywell and International Paper (NYSE: IP) will address contaminated soils and sediments by treating some contaminants in place, storing some contaminants on site and handling others by treatment off-site. The two companies will also reimburse the United States for all past and future costs associated with the cleanup.
In exchange, the government agrees not to sue, and the companies will be protected from suits by third parties.
A Honeywell predecessor company first purchased the site in 1963 for a plant to produce chlorine gas, caustic soda and bleach for an International Paper plant on 1,300 acres adjacent to the Honeywell site.
“The environmental benefits that will result from today’s settlement are a win for the communities near this Superfund site,” said EPA Acting Regional Administrator Mary S. Walker. “This agreement demonstrates EPA’s commitment to hold companies responsible for contamination they caused.”
The announcement of the decree and complaint did not discuss how much it might cost to clean up the site. But the consent decree notes that “In order to ensure completion of the work (the companies) shall secure financial assurance, initially in the amount of $16,200,000 (estimated cost of the work), for the benefit of EPA.”3
The DOJ complaint, filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, says Honeywell and International Paper are liable for historic industrial discharges of metals, including mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the site.
“This settlement incisively corrects historic environmental issues impinging on the Cape Fear River,” said Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clarkof the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
Honeywell is moving its headquarters from New Jersey to Charlotte. The first 150 to 200 executives and other headquarters workers are expected to be in Charlotte by September. By 2024, the company expects to have as many as 750 workers in the city.
https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2019/04/19/honeywell-international-paper-commit-to-16-2m.html
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Feature: Does the EU Pic Regulation Provide 'Consent' to Outsource Harm?
Apr 19, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
EU law allows companies to legally transport dangerous substances to developing countries.
The chemical ethylene oxide made US headlines in February, after the Illinois EPA ordered a Sterigenics’ medical supply sterilisation plant shut down over concerns about potentially carcinogenic emissions.
Sterigenics called the EPA decision "indefensible", arguing that the decision was based on flawed air samples creating "needless fear". The Illinois Department of Public Health recommended further studies using a larger population base and additional sites, but the Willowbrook facility remains shut. The arguments are now tied up in court proceedings.
The US case stirred debate in the EU over the Prior Informed Consent Regulation, commonly known as the Pic Regulation, which applies to industrial chemicals and pesticides that are banned or severely restricted by EU legislation. The regulation aims to promote cooperation in the international trade of hazardous chemicals.
Ethylene oxide is used in the US to make antifreeze, adhesives, detergents, polyester, fumigants and pesticides, and as a sterilisation agent for medical equipment. The US EPA characterises it as "carcinogenicto humans" by inhalation.
In the EU, it is also used in plant protection products, laboratory chemicals, inks and toners, and fertilisers. According to the harmonised classification and labelling approved by the EU, it is toxic if inhaled and may cause cancer and genetic defects, as well as skin and respiratory irritation.
Despite the warnings, EU countries may ship ethylene oxide abroad if the importing country gives 'prior informed consent'. Some NGOs consider the practice flawed, however.
An 'egregious practice'?
Pic is "an egregious practice" that needs to be stopped, says Joe DiGangi, senior science and technical adviser at the International POPs elimination network (Ipen).
"Substances that are dangerous in the EU are not somehow safe in Côte d'Ivoire," he adds. Regardless of the UN Rotterdam Convention which Pic implements, Mr DiGangi says exports of banned substances should "simply be prohibited".
But EU companies argue that they are following the law and supplying much-needed chemicals to developing nations.
It isn't clear how widespread the practice is. Echa was notified of 14,000 tonnes of shipments for ethylene oxide in 2017 – but the actual volumes could be higher as companies aren’t required to notify after their first exports. The agency’s database and report do not list company names, only the substances and the EU countries in which the shipments are notified.
Other examples of this legitimate trade include ethylene dichloride, the EU trade bloc's most exported toxic chemical in 2017 with notifications at about 346,000 tonnes. A precursor for PVC, it is identified by the EPA as a "probable human carcinogen". The European Parliament and Council of Ministers have formally adopted a proposal that will add ethylene dichloride to the list of substances recognised as causing cancer in the workplace.
'Pic list'
The 'Pic list' is an array of toxic substances controlled under the Regulation that includes pesticides, hazardous carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and toxic metals, among others.
Some are either phased out in the EU or face severe restrictions. Yet NGOs argue that they are absorbed by developing nations, most of them ill equipped to manage the risks posed to human health and the environment.
Lead is one such example. The poisonous metal, used in a variety of consumer and manufacturing products from batteries and jewellery to shipbuilding and construction, is generally classified in the EU as toxic to reproduction (fertility and development) and toxic following prolonged and repeated exposure (adverse effects on several organs). There are lead restrictions for consumer products and toys and, in March, the EU General Court ruled that a European Commission Decision to allow a company to sell pigments for paints containing lead chromates in the EU was illegal.
Yet, about 13,000 tonnes of lead were notified for shipments in 2017 to developing countries including Ghana, Jordan, Vietnam and Nicaragua.Creosote, used as a preservative and antiseptic, is another carcinogen banned in the EU for consumer use since 2003 and severely restricted for industrial use since 2011. Echa was notified of more than 100,000 tonnes of exports to developing countries as well as to the US, Canada and Australia.
Cameroon, Oman, Pakistan, Senegal and others received 140,000 tonnes of benzene, a carcinogen restricted in the EU under REACH which is predominantly used to make pesticides, plastics, resins, synthetic fibres, drugs and other products. The EU also imported benzene in 2017, however, mainly to Belgium, Italy and Poland.
The list goes on with Pic’s inventory featuring more than 200 chemicals, many of them shipped to developing countries with regulations that may not be as sophisticated as those in Europe. So what is behind this practice?
Border control
Pic, in place since 2012, calls on exporters to use proper labelling, provide directions for safe handling and inform purchasers of known restrictions or bans. Annex III generates data on 50 of the most harmful substances subject to the Pic procedure. That means trades are on record. Importing countries can exercise their right to refuse certain chemicals and governments can control their borders for harmful substances.
Yet the big question remains: should chemicals deemed dangerous in the EU be sold to other regions?
Bob Diderich, head of the OECD's environmental, health and safety division, says many importing countries lack the regulatory framework to implement the same kind of restrictions as those in the countries of origin.
"We are of course aware of the lack of capacity and legislation in many developing countries to handle the information they get," says Gunilla Ericson, senior adviser, international unit at the Swedish chemicals agency (Kemi).
"That is why our work with developing countries is focused on institutional capacity development and building and implementation of national legislation for sound chemicals and waste management."
Dangerous trade
"It is easy to find substances banned in the EU for safety reasons, but still manufactured and exported to countries with weak regulatory controls," says Ipen's Mr DiGangi. "It is also easy to find substances that are not banned but extremely dangerous being exported all over the world."
Many Pic chemicals – more than two-thirds of Rotterdam’s Annex III – are strong pesticides. They represent the biggest chemical exposure in developing countries, mainly due to the large proportion of people working in agriculture. Pesticides are needed to fight crop diseases that are typical in warmer climates.
Mercedes Vinas, head of Echa’s submission and processing unit, says that in many countries there is also malaria or endemic disease, which requires "far stronger and effective products" than those available in the EU.
What’s important, says Ms Vinas, is that authorities are informed about the substances they take into their country and know how to use them safely: "And then it is up to them to decide whether they agree with the import."
Importing countries should, in theory, exercise their right to reject chemicals they cannot adequately control, but this only applies to substances listed in Annex III of the Convention. Many of the EU Pic chemicals, including lead, are not in Annex III.
To ban or not to ban
The purpose of Rotterdam is not to ban the exports. The idea, Echa’s Ms Vinas says, is to help developing nations with "capacity building" for risk management and access to information.
Echa provides hands-on training to authorities in importing countries on how to implement international conventions and put a chemical management system in place, she says. Customs officials can use the agency’s data on the chemicals.
Rolph Payet, executive secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, adds that Rotterdam "expressly specifies" the right of the parties to take action that is more stringently protective of human health and the environment than called for in the Convention. It is not clear how often that happens, however.
The 'Pic list' consists of 207 chemicals in Annex I subject to varying degrees of notification procedures. Only in 47 of those substances is the full Pic procedure applied under the Convention. For the rest, an export notification, and at most an explicit consent from the importing country, is sufficient.
Much of the information is not open to public scrutiny. Echa publishes aggregate tonnages for each substance, rather than information about individual countries. Companies report their first yearly exports and, if they get the green light, can export for the rest of the calendar year, Ms Vinas says.
Compliance is an issue. A 2018 enforcement project led to 14 prosecutions in the EU, with a failure to notify Pic exports found in 10% of the companies inspected.
Industry responsibility
Ipen's Mr DiGangi wants multinational producers to withdraw substances globally if they are banned in any country. Will they do that?
BASF, which produces benzene and creosote among others, said it is "aware" of its responsibility in the international trade and export of all Pic substances and "in strict compliance" with the Regulation.
Dow Chemical, a major producer of ethylene oxide and ethylene dichloride, did not respond to a request for comment.
As for Sterigenics, the Willowbrook, Illinois facility remains closed. "We are taking all appropriate legal actions to resume operations," the company told Chemical Watch.
The OECD's Bob Diderich says the organisation will submit a proposal to develop an indicator counting the number of countries that have a regulatory framework for industrial chemicals. It would be added to an existing suite of indicators for measuring Saicm implementation – the UN policy framework to promote chemical safety worldwide.
If it is accepted, a baseline report may be ready for September 2020.
https://chemicalwatch.com/75365/feature-does-the-eu-pic-regulation-provide-consent-to-outsource-harm
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FERC Approves 2 Export Projects Despite Climate Rift
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Rod Kuckro
As regulators yesterday approved two liquefied natural gas export projects, the schism among the four members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over whether to address carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change became more apparent.
Both projects were approved on a 3-1 vote, with an agonized Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur joining Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Commissioner Bernard McNamee to advance the projects.
Commissioner Richard Glick dissented.
LaFleur and Glick are Democrats; Chatterjee and McNamee are Republicans.
Chatterjee characterized FERC's action as a "geopolitical" victory for the Trump administration, saying, "Make no mistake about it: Today is a very good day for America and a very bad day for Russia."
He went further to align the purportedly independent commission with the ambitions of President Trump and the departments of Energy, Transportation and State. "This is probably the biggest energy win to date from this administration," he said.
The administration's drive to export LNG is in part designed to counter a massive gas pipeline planned by Russia's Gazprom across the Baltic Sea and into Europe.
After the vote, Chatterjee took to Twitter a dozen times, repeating those themes.
McNamee shares Chatterjee's view of the important role FERC plays in supporting U.S. foreign policy goals. He also tweeted about the project's benefits to "our friends and allies throughout the world."
"There's a strategic recognition that if we're able to provide natural gas to Europe especially as they're moving more towards renewables — shutting down coal, shutting down nuclear plants — that gives them the ability to achieve those policy goals, but then they've got to have natural gas," McNamee said in an interview.
"Just having the knowledge that these projects are going to be coming helps" countries make long-term decisions and "decreases the leverage that Russia will have," he said.
The commission approved construction of the Driftwood LNG and pipeline projects and the Port Arthur LNG and pipeline projects. Now it is up to the Department of Energy to authorize LNG exports from the facilities.
The Driftwood project in Calcasieu Parish, La., would export an estimated 27.6 million metric tons of LNG annually.
The Port Arthur project would have a total estimated production capacity of 13.5 million metric tons per year and would be located at the site of a previously approved but unbuilt import terminal near Port Arthur, Texas.
Because the export terminals would not be in operation until sometime in 2023 at the earliest, they would not be candidates to provide alternative supplies of LNG to U.S. allies or others in the near term.
There are nine more LNG export projects pending at FERC. The commission approved the Venture Global Calcasieu Pass LNG project in February.'Dirty little secret'
As with the Calcasieu Pass LNG project, LaFleur voted in the affirmative after Chatterjee and McNamee agreed to include in FERC's order estimates on the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions related to the projects.
"It's not lost on me that people consider me the swing vote that is allowing these LNG projects to be authorized," she said.
"Despite my considerable and ever-growing concerns about the commission's current approach to analyzing climate impacts in these cases, I'm trying to supplement that analysis myself and decide case by case so I don't become paralyzed into having to dissent in every case," LaFleur said.
"In spite of the fact that we have reached compromises on some language" in the order, "it's getting harder, not easier, to do that," she said.
She noted that courts "keep speaking in cases around the country on the requirements of considering climate change in project cases."
"I don't understand why we do not act proactively together to address the issues in our cases" rather than "waiting for the court to impose requirements on us that could add unnecessary complexities and legal risk to these very big projects," she said.
"We would be well served to do it for the benefit of the public whose interest we seek to protect."
Glick derided the inclusion of CO2 emissions numbers in FERC's orders.
"Putting figures in there without context doesn't do anything. We could have added last night's score of the [Washington] Nationals game. We're listing carbon dioxide emissions but leaving out any context of their adverse impacts," he said.
"The dirty little secret of all of this is that it doesn't matter how many emissions we're talking about, because if you follow the majority's approach through to its logical conclusion, we're never going to consider if GHG emissions are significant, no matter how large the emissions," Glick said.
"I think everyone knows what's going on here: This is climate change; that's why we just can't talk about it. I think we need to reassess that because people are losing faith in Washington, D.C., for a lot of reasons, and this is certainly one of them," he said.
Glick argued that FERC has a broad mandate to order environmental mitigation, citing measures prescribed for both the Driftwood and Port Arthur projects regarding the loss of wetlands.
"Why can't we do that for GHG emissions? We have all sorts of mitigation authority. We use it all the time," he said.Clarity needed, but it's up to Congress
Chatterjee has repeatedly explained his opposition to the type of rigorous analysis Glick and LaFleur want on the downstream climate effects of LNG and natural gas pipeline projects.
The Natural Gas Act and the National Environmental Policy Act are not clear on whether FERC has the authority, he said.
Asked whether he would be open to asking the appropriate committees of Congress to look at clarifying FERC authority, Chatterjee demurred.
"That's a question for Congress. Looking at the realities of something getting done with the configuration of the House and Senate right now, I don't know how worthwhile such a move would be," he said.
Before joining the commission in August 2017, Chatterjee was a senior policy aide for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Chatterjee believes that approval of LNG projects is a direct way for FERC to help address greenhouse gas emissions globally, displacing "dirtier sources of energy in other parts of the world."
He said "if people roll their eyes at me" because of that assertion, "we're never going to be able to have a reasonable conversation here" on climate change.
"I'm concerned about the legal durability of these project orders," he said, offering that he's "not sure we have capacity to do [more on greenhouse gas emissions]."
Chatterjee said he believes in a "market-based approach to dealing with carbon and climate and mitigation. I don't believe in government regulations being the way that you address these things."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/19/stories/1060183079
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State Defends South Dakota Pipeline Protest Legislation
Apr 19, 2019 | AP (In Washington Post)
By Blake Nicholson
South Dakota’s governor and attorney general are asking a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit challenging a new law that aims to prevent disruptive demonstrations against the Keystone XL pipeline if it’s built.
The law allows officials to pursue criminal or civil penalties from demonstrators who engage in “riot boosting,” which is defined in part as encouraging violence during a riot. The American Civil Liberties Union and American Indian tribes say the law will stifle free speech, but the state disputes that argument.
“Defendants deny that any objectively reasonable fear of prosecution for protected speech would arise under (the law),” Deputy Attorney General Richard Williams said in a Tuesday filing.
He also said the state is immune from such lawsuits.
The legislation was muscled through the Legislation by Republican Gov. Kristi Noem and the GOP leaders in a matter of days earlier this year. The new law came in the wake of massive and prolonged protests in North Dakota against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in 2016 and 2017. There were 761 arrests in six months, and the policing effort cost the state $38 million.
Texas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners also is seeking to recover millions of dollars in protest-related damages from Greenpeace, an effort the environmental group calls a “sham.”
American Indian tribes and environmental groups have promised similar protests against Keystone XL, which TransCanada Corp. wants to build to move Canadian crude through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with lines carrying oil to Gulf Coast refineries. The $8 billion project is tied up in the courts, as president Donald Trump tries to push it through but environmental groups resist.
The ACLU sued over the South Dakota law late last month on behalf of groups and people planning to protest the pipeline or encourage others to do so. The lawsuit argues the law is an overreach, vague and targets protected speech.
The law states that people who solicit or pay someone to break the law or be arrested would be subject to paying three times the amount that would compensate for the detriment caused. Money collected would be used to pay for riot damage claims or could be transferred into a fund administered by the state Department of Public Safety.
Noem has said the law is meant to address problems caused by “out-of-state rioters funded by out-of-state interests,” and that it arose from discussions with lawmakers, authorities, stakeholders and TransCanada.
Tribes have said they were not consulted. Williams, the deputy attorney general, said in his filing that “all citizens of the state, including tribes, tribal members, and environmental groups, were equally allowed to participate in the legislative process.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/state-defends-south-dakota-pipeline-protest-legislation/2019/04/19/307b8226-62bd-11e9-bf24-db4b9fb62aa2_story.html?utm_term=.322f11e1bc60
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N.C. Coastal Panel Opposes Atlantic Exploration
Apr 19, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
North Carolina's coastal regulatory board says risks associated with offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling off the Atlantic coast aren't worth threats to the tourism and fishing economies and the environment.
The state Coastal Resources Commission approved a resolution yesterday opposing the idea.
President Trump's administration is preparing permits to allow testing for possible drilling sites off the Atlantic coast. Some East Coast states and many coastal North Carolina communities already are against the plan.
Yesterday's resolution, approved unanimously, cited the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills and studies showing adverse effects from seismic testing on marine life.
The commission is appointed by the governor and legislative leaders. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein have already have spoken out against offshore exploration.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/19/stories/1060182451
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NAFTA 2.0 to Have 'Little Impact' on Energy Sector — Report
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
President Trump's replacement treaty for the North American Free Trade Agreement will have minor effects on the U.S. energy sector, an independent federal review has concluded.
The U.S. International Trade Commission report, released yesterday, finds that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will have "very little impact" on U.S. energy trade and production, given long-standing preferential treatment among the three nations under the 25-year-old NAFTA.
The ITC also concluded that changes to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process would likely reduce U.S. investment in Mexico, while producing a "small increase" in U.S. domestic spending and production in manufacturing and energy production.
The deal announced by Trump last year, which still must be ratified by Congress to take effect, maintained but scaled back the ISDS provisions, which are strongly supported by industry but opposed by environmentalists and consumer advocates. Critics say the provision allows multinational companies a forum to challenge safety regulations (E&E Daily, Aug. 28, 2018).
Overall, ITC modeling estimated that the USMCA would raise the U.S. gross domestic product by $68.2 billion, or 0.35%, while boosting U.S. employment by 176,000 jobs, or 0.12%.
The commission said the deal would "likely have a positive impact" on U.S. trade, both with Mexico and Canada and with the rest of the world.
Ahead of the ITC release, the Sierra Club charged that past ITC reports have overlooked the broader environmental impacts of trade deals, which the group said encourage "outsourcing of pollution and jobs."
"To measure the true effect that Trump's NAFTA deal would have on our communities, the ITC report must take a hard look at NAFTA's track record of toxic dumping, job outsourcing, and climate pollution — a track record that Trump's pro-polluter deal would shamelessly perpetuate," said Ben Beachy, the director of the Sierra Club's Living Economy program, in a statement.
The ITC's relatively modest economic predictions are unlikely to help the prospects for the USMCA when it's submitted to Congress for an up-or-down vote later this year.
Democrats this week laid out a laundry list of complaints over the USMCA outline the administration released last year, while members of both parties continue to grumble about Trump's enthusiasm for slapping tariffs on imports of crucial commodities, including steel and aluminum.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/19/stories/1060182987
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Anti-Energy Lawsuits, Pushed by Activists, Don’t Help Climate or California
Apr 19, 2019 | Real Clear Energy
By Theresa Harvey
California has become central to the world-wide climate change debate, as some local officials, spurred on by trial attorneys and activists have waged an aggressive legal campaign against energy manufacturers. The public deserves to know the high cost of this litigation, who is behind this assault on California’s business climate, and why.
The European Union’s Parliament recently invited a man named Geoffrey Supran to testify about a paper that he wrote accusing ExxonMobil of misleading the public about global warming. His co-author is Naomi Oreskes, and she has a long history of pushing for litigation against the energy industry. Conveniently, she’s made a career providing tailor-made “research” to bolster her cause. In Washington, as Congress begins planning for hearings in support of its Green New Deal agenda, it may invite Oreskes or Supran to testify there too—providing another platform for their brand of activism. But, it’s simply an anti-fossil fuel crusade dressed up in academic clothing for trial lawyers looking to get paid.
Beginning in July 2017, several California communities - notably Oakland and San Francisco - filed so-called “public nuisance” lawsuits in federal court, alleging that energy manufacturers should be held financially accountable for climate change impacts such as rising sea levels and wildfires. Local officials in these cities, teaming with trial attorneys, hoped they could score both political victories and new streams of revenue. The attorneys themselves stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
Thankfully, public nuisance lawsuits have fallen on deaf ears in the courts so far. This past June, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California – a Clinton appointee - dismissed the lawsuits filed by San Francisco and Oakland, arguing the issue of climate change “deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.” The lawsuits are now under appeal.
To their credit, some California mayors have denounced these lawsuits as legal wild goose chases. Huntington Beach Mayor Mike Posey, for example, wrote that his coastal community has “no plans to go down the public nuisance path.” Posey explained that such lawsuits only serve to hurt manufacturing and could eventually be aimed at cities themselves.
Leaders like Mayor Posey are acting as voices of reason. Others, like Naomi Oreskes, are simply stirring the pot. She was part of a group who in 2012 met in La Jolla, California to hatch the public nuisance lawsuit strategy against energy manufacturers. Alongside the Union of Concern Scientists and trial attorney Matt Pawa, Oreskes was the brain trust for how to use lawsuits to damage the fossil fuel sector and make money for attorneys, all in the name of climate change.
But while Oreskes masquerades as an academic, she’s really just another anti-energy fanatic. A “Professor of the History of Science,” Oreskes never earned an academic degree in the field of climatology, meteorology, or atmospheric sciences. She is a geologist by training, with a Ph.D. from Stanford, a B.S. in mining geology from the University of London, and work experience as a mining geologist in Australia. Her climate change work has been bankrolled by The Rockefeller Family Fund as part of a campaign to damage U.S. energy companies.
Despite her leading role in climate circles, Oreskes's work has been characterized by at least one leading expert as “unreliable, invalid, and biased.” For example, Oreskes co-authored a paper in 2017 alleging ExxonMobil’s public statements on climate change “were misleading.” And although she claims to have examined ExxonMobil’s communications from 1977 to 2014, there was no ExxonMobil until 1999. In reality, most of the advertorials Oreskes claimed misled the public on climate change were published by Mobil before the companies merged in 1999, while the internal climate research was largely conducted by Exxon.
An error this obvious is troubling, but even more so considering that Oreskes’s deeply flawed “study” has repeatedly been cited by those suing energy manufacturers. Oreskes even added her name to a legal brief filed this year with other academics urging the California lawsuits be moved to state court, hoping for more favorable judges.
These lawsuits are dangerous. They threaten the 30,000 manufacturers that call California home. They also target a state that is literally an energy production powerhouse, with abundant supplies of crude, sunshine, geothermal resources, and hydropower electricity generation. Instead of seeking to run even more companies out of California, adding to the 10,000 employers who have already left in recent years, we should focus instead on common sense approaches to climate change.
If we really want to create positive change for California, we should devote our attention to looming challenges such as unfunded pension obligations, affordable housing, and water resources, rather than on misguided approaches like public nuisance lawsuits spurred on by agenda-driven voices like Naomi Oreskes. That strategy is a win for all of us, not just for trial attorneys.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/04/18/anti-energy_lawsuits_pushed_by_activists_dont_help_climate_or_california_110425.html
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Green Deals Won’t Save the World, But Access to Energy Will
Apr 18, 2019 | Real Clear Energy
By Jason Isaac
Around the world, nearly a billion people still don’t have access to electricity.
Though we take it for granted in the United States, energy isn’t a readily accessible luxury across the planet. It’s essential for clean water, modern medical care, refrigeration, transporting goods, and cooking without resorting to burning harmful chemicals indoors. It makes educating our children, conducting business, and heating and cooling our homes easier than ever before.
Nearly every activity essential to modern life depends on reliable energy. It has fueled more than 150 years of unprecedented human progress. Maintaining improvements in global health, wealth and prosperity should be the driving force behind our national energy policy.
However, both sides of the aisle have now released so-called “Green Deals.” These competing public relations documents do not serve the American people and ignore the debate we should be having.
That’s why solutions like President Trump’s new executive orders supporting American energy are so refreshing.
The question facing our nation, after all, is not how to combat the laughable and unscientific assertion that the world will end in the next decade (or even two or three). And even if some politicians believe that, they don’t remotely have a plan to replace 80% of all the power we use, the percentage that comes from fossil fuels, in that time frame.
The real question is how we ensure the developed world continues to benefit from affordable and reliable energy, and how we help electrify underdeveloped populations so that they may too experience the same level of human progress and prosperity the rest of us enjoy.
It is the United States, after all, that has dramatically escalated access, development, and use of all energy sources, particularly fossil fuels, and still maintains the safest air in the world. Yes, we can do both.
The president’s new executive orders get the ball rolling by securing and expanding America’s energy dominance. They remove ineffective and unnecessary barriers for existing operations and new infrastructure projects while prioritizing safety, responsible environmental stewardship, American job creation, and economic growth.
These measures mean the American people will benefit from lower energy costs, more good-paying jobs, and less dependence on energy that comes from dangerous parts of the world.
Over the last 15 years, the United States’ petroleum trade deficit, the balance of imports to exports, has declined by $350 billion. That’s billions of dollars remaining in the United States, bolstering our economy, instead of going overseas to unstable and hostile nations — and we’re on track to become a net energy exporter next year.
More can be done to keep America on the path to energy dominance. Rather than engage in tit-for-tat fights over “Green Deals” that seek to limit access to reliable energy, Congress can update and reform laws that make expanding our energy access unnecessarily more difficult.
It can start by ensuring the Endangered Species Act can no longer be abused to shut down responsible exploration. Congress should phase out the Renewable Fuel Standard that distorts the market for energy, and it should return power to the states where local agencies and officials are better suited to oversee land use.
Energy has fueled America’s greatest achievements: unparalleled economic growth, technological and medical advancements, increasing life expectancy and public health, art and literature, and more.
All this would not have been possible without efficient energy and electricity. Willfully limiting our energy supply through unattainable pipe dreams like renewable mandates do nothing to improve our quality of life, and could, in fact, move us backwards.
Even in Texas, which has the country’s most competitive and best-run energy market, grid operators are warning that this summer’s reserve margin – the difference between what consumers demand and what can be produced – could be at perilously low levels.
Our nation is fortunate that President Trump is willing to forego political correctness and buck the system. His support for the energy we all depend on to survive and thrive shows he understands the real world we live in, not the fantasy land envisioned by “Green Deals.”
The United States has always been a leader in energy development, efficiency, and innovation. Politicians who cave to the environmental Left’s climate change narrative miss the simple reality that economic freedom and access to affordable, reliable energy are what we need to spread prosperity, reduce poverty, and improve the human condition.
Having access to the energy we need is a much better deal.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2019/04/18/green_deals_wont_save_the_world_but_access_to_energy_will_110426.html
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EPA Must Face Claims It Didn’t Warn of Flint Water Health Risks
Apr 19, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Daniel Sedian
The U.S. government isn’t immune from a lawsuit accusing the EPA of failing to timely respond and warn residents of Flint, Mich., about health risks in its water supply, a federal court ruled.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged failure to act in response to the crisis wasn’t grounded in considerations of public policy, and therefore the EPA didn’t demonstrate entitlement to sovereign immunity under the Federal Tort Claims Act, Judge Linda V. Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan said.
The “EPA’s failure to warn Flint residents of the severe health risks the City’s water supply posed to them cannot be justified by any permissible exercise of policy judgment,” the court said.
No public policy could be legitimately balanced against the need to protect Flint “from involuntary and continued poisoning,” the court added.
The plaintiffs allege in their lawsuit that the EPA negligently responded to Flint’s water crisis by not intervening, investigating, obtaining compliance, and warning Flint residents about its contaminated water.
Within weeks of Flint switching its water source from the Detroit Water and Sewage Department to the Flint River, residents experienced rashes, hair loss, positive tests for E. coli, a spike in Legionnaires’ disease, and an elevation in the blood lead levels in children, the court said.
The case is Burgess v. United States, E.D. Mich., No. 17-11218, 4/18/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/flint-water-case-alleging-epa-negligence-may-continue
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Democrats Urge 2020 Presidential Candidates To Prioritize Climate Change
Apr 19, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Key Democratic lawmakers are urging their party's presidential candidates to make climate change a top issue in the 2020 election, compared to its lower-tier status in prior campaigns, arguing that would draw a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump and build a groundswell of public support for major climate mitigation policies.
“Don't allow the conversation, the political conversation, to push the issue of climate change off to the side,” said Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), who is sponsoring a bipartisan carbon tax proposal, during an April 18 event hosted by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) regarding how attorneys can address “the climate emergency.”
The lawmaker specifically urged climate advocates to “make every candidate in the presidential campaign prioritize this issue,” citing the climate-centric 2020 bid of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who also spoke at the ELI event.
“The next president of the United States must make defeating climate change the single, top, No. 1 priority,” Inslee told the event. “If this is not job No. 1, it's not going to get done.”
While Inslee has been polling toward the back of the Democratic field, many energy and environment observers say his campaign could spur other contenders to take a more forceful stance on climate policy, even if he is ultimately unsuccessful. “Some of my colleagues are still afraid of this issue,” he said.
Early signs of climate becoming a priority for presidential candidates have emerged in recent months, both on Capitol Hill and among the nearly 20 Democratic contenders -- with many observers crediting the party's ambitious Green New Deal (GND) resolution for spurring increased focus on climate issues.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), the GND resolution's chief sponsor in the Senate, also told the ELI event that addressing climate change has been “injected into the political cycle” like never before.
He praised Inslee's focus on the subject, including his call for Democrats to host a primary debate exclusively on the climate issue. If the Democratic nominee were to make a forceful push for addressing climate change, he argued, it would draw a sharp contrast with Trump and boost public support for affirmative climate policy.
The eventual nominee “will be able to present their solution to the climate crisis” during high-profile debates with Trump, who dismisses mainstream climate science, has pushed to dismantle Obama-era climate rules and promises to withdraw from the Paris Agreement of 195 other countries committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
“That candidate will be able to say, 'My plan brings 3 million new jobs. What do you have, Mr. President, as denier in chief, to offer the American people?'” said Markey.
Markey compared the GND to President John Kennedy's famous 1962 speech urging Americans to support the Apollo program to land a man on the Moon, in that it is a broad call to tackle a major goal of national importance. The GND calls for a “10-year mobilization” of zero-carbon projects throughout the economy, with a goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by midcentury.
“The same is true” for the GND, he said, adding it can bring “massive job creation in order to save all of creation.”
Policy Divisions
Democrats' relative agreement on the importance of the climate issue comes despite persistent differences on the optimal policy to reduce enough GHGs to stave off the worst impacts of global warming, an issue that was also on display at the ELI event.
For example, Inslee was asked whether he supports a federal price on carbon -- a fraught topic in Washington state given repeated failed attempts to impose a carbon price at the state level, even though economists broadly praise the policy as a cost-effective way to cut emissions.
“I don't think it's absolutely necessary, but possibly,” he responded. He added that there are “multiple ways to finance” efforts to reduce GHGs and “dozens of regulatory actions” that could reduce emissions.
Specifically, he called for scrapping what he said are $27 billion in “ill-gotten” subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. “In effect, it is a carbon price by removing those subsidies,” he said.
In contrast, Deutch touted his bipartisan carbon tax bill, which would rebate all of the revenues back to Americans to offset higher energy costs, as the best chance for major climate legislation, specifically because it has the opportunity to garner GOP and industry backing. “Nothing happens in Washington unless it's bipartisan,” he said.
The New York Times also highlighted the climate-related divisions among the 18 declared Democratic hopefuls, after sending them each a climate policy questionnaire.
The article notes that only seven of the candidates “put their weight firmly behind a carbon tax,” while another five were willing to consider it. Additionally, nine candidates supported stronger GHG regulations than were imposed by the Obama administration, and four others were willing to consider it.
Deutch's bill, H.R. 763, is co-sponsored by Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) as well as other members of the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus. The bill's remaining 28 co-sponsors are all Democrats. It would impose a $15-per-ton charge on carbon emissions, increasing by $10 annually.
Such a price would “change behavior” throughout the economy to shift toward lower-carbon technology, he said, arguing the measure is the “most important and most dramatic step we can take” to address climate change.
Deutch said backers of the measure are “trying to get a hearing in a committee,” a possible signal of the headwinds that carbon taxes face among progressive environmental groups, which tend to favor regulatory controls on GHGs or the emissions certainty provided by cap-and-trade programs.
He argued that his bill is aligned with the GND because it is “a significant way to move toward” the resolution's ambitious decarbonization goals. But he argued that he is seeking support both from those who have “embraced” the GND, “and, frankly, from people who . . . don't like it and argue it goes too far.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/democrats-urge-2020-presidential-candidates-prioritize-climate-change
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NYC Council Targets Real Estate With Sweeping Emissions Bills
Apr 19, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By David Iaconangelo
The New York City Council approved a landmark package of climate bills yesterday that council members called the most ambitious emissions-cutting policies ever undertaken by a city.
The package's centerpiece targets the building sector, which is responsible for more than two-thirds of the city's greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite fierce opposition from real estate groups, the council approved the building measure by an overwhelming margin, 45-2.
"Real estate's fighting this tooth and nail," Councilman Ben Kallos, who co-chaired a progressive caucus that led work on the bills, said in a pre-vote rally. "But I have a news flash for everyone: We don't work for real estate."
The council's vote came as city officials around the country are contemplating actions aimed at the buildings sector as a way of achieving emissions goals, said Cliff Majersik, executive director of the Institute for Market Transformation, an energy efficiency nonprofit.
"Nothing they've done to date has put them on pace," Majersik said. "So if they want to really move the needle on climate, they need to do something dramatic."
New York's law requires about 50,000 of the largest, worst-polluting buildings to bring their emissions under a new cap, or face fines. The group of regulated buildings will grow over the decade, with the aim of slashing emissions 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050.
The wider package, the "Climate Mobilization Act," awaits the signature of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who says he supports it.
Comprising a dozen or so laws and resolutions, the package features a 5-cent tax on paper bags, which aims to reduce solid waste.
It also seeks to wind down reliance on fossil fuels, calling on officials to study the feasibility of shuttering the city's natural gas-fired power plants and replacing them with storage-aided renewables. A resolution urges state regulators to deny a permit to a planned gas pipeline that would cross New York Harbor.
Some of the bills would adjust zoning rules to promote clean energy, in part as an on-site power supply. New buildings will have to cover their roofs with plants, solar panels or small wind turbines.
Building owners can offset a small percentage of their upgrades by buying renewable energy credits.
That feature would stimulate the real estate industry's interest in renewables, predicted Pete Sikora, climate and inequality campaign director of New York Communities for Change.
As owners replace oil and gas cooling and heating systems with electrified versions, zero-carbon sources on the grid would help them cut their emissions, he said.
Some buildings, like houses of worship or rent-controlled apartments, will be exempt from those big-ticket changes.
That was a point of contention with the Real Estate Board of New York, a powerful group comprising mostly large developers, which said the law would put too great a burden on a small number of building owners.
Growth in energy-hungry sectors like tech, media and finance would be dampened, the group warned. And compliance would cost owners across the city $4 billion.
A new office within the Department of Buildings will oversee compliance with the buildings mandates. Loan programs will help owners pay for efficiency upgrades, which advocates said will bring down energy costs enough to protect most tenants.
"We believe — we know — that this will not actually produce that kind of cost pressure on rents," Sikora said.
Several co-sponsors evoked the past year's warnings on climate in reports by the United Nations and the White House, respectively, as justification for what they posed as the city's version of a Green New Deal.
Its passage, they said, marked a "breakthrough moment" that would establish a new global bar for municipal climate action.
For over a decade, real estate groups had resisted strong building-emissions legislation, said Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
"Now we know that the house is on fire," he said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/04/19/stories/1060183109
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Environmentalists See Victory With Green New Deal Blitz
Apr 19, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green
Environmentalists and lawmakers are praising a Democratic messaging blitz that they say has put the problem of global warming back at the forefront of the national conversation.
Since Democrats took back control of the House, roughly 14 congressional hearings have been held on topics related to climate change, a striking change from the years when Republicans ran both chambers of Congress.
Polls are also showing that many Democratic voters are concerned about climate change, increasing the odds, green groups hope, that candidates will talk about the issue and potentially take action if they are elected.
New debates also have opened up in both the House and Senate on the need to tackle climate change, putting pressure on GOP lawmakers to put together their own plans and raising the temperature on Democrats to take more serious legislative steps on the issue.
“Obviously we’ve seen a much more substantive debate on how we address climate change and build a thriving green economy,” said Charlie Cray, senior research specialist at GreenPeace.
“Until now, all we’ve seen is Republicans denying climate change is real and Democrats pushing back based on science. And that’s not enough.”
For Elizabeth Schuster, energy policy manager at Food and Water Watch, the change in messaging in Congress has been night and day.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. Although they were slowed by the shutdown, the [Democratic leadership] created the House Select Committee on Climate Crisis, the House was able to hold hearings on climate change, it’s a big welcome change,” she said.
“Climate and energy has finally moved to the top of the conversation, which is very exciting for us who have worked in this space for a long time.”
The biggest conversation-starter on climate change has been the Green New Deal — the idea of developing an electric grid that relies on 100 percent renewable energy.
The concept was championed early this year by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who introduced a House resolution in its name. More than 100 lawmakers have signed on to back the initiative and nearly every Democratic presidential candidate has backed the Green New Deal in some way.
“Climate change is at the center of American politics. Before it was somewhere in the margin. It’s a huge shift from a few months ago and certainly 2016,” said Stephen O'Hanlon, communications director for the Sunrise Movement, which organized youth protests backing the idea that helped it break through and receive national attention.
“It’s clear that it wouldn't have happened if it weren’t for 10,000 people across the country raising their voices and pushing for what we need and the Green New Deal is certainly part of that.”
The Green New Deal hasn’t been a complete winner for Democrats, who have been divided over how hard to push on the initiative. It has also opened up Democrats to attacks about the costs and feasibility of the program. The resolution has also failed to pass the Senate, and isn't likely to be taken up in the House. Supporters of the plan have since called it a “vision” that was never intended for a vote.
But for environmentalists, it has been a winner in bringing more attention to and concern over looming global warming. And according to recent polling, climate change has risen in importance to voters.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll out Thursday found that 51 percent of respondents had heard about the Green New Deal.
In March, a poll of likely Democratic Iowa caucusgoers found that climate change was the second issue respondents wanted candidates to talk “a lot” about, just after health care. Ninety-one percent said they wanted a candidate who supported the Green New Deal.
A Monmouth University poll released last week, found that climate change was the second top concern following health care among likely Democratic primary voters.
They polling is good news for those who want to see government action on climate change, which historically has polled low as an issue that motivates people to vote for a specific candidate.
Exit polls after the 2016 presidential election, for example, suggested that climate change was near the bottom of issues on the minds of voters. Democrat Hillary Clinton, who supported the Paris climate deal negotiated by the Obama administration, lost the election to President Trump — who pulled the U.S. out of the deal and has expressed repeated doubts about climate change.
Those calling for action on climate change hope that is changing, and they think a series of reports warning of a more urgent danger from global warming are focusing voters on the issue.
A report issued in October by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that if emissions continue at their present rate, the atmosphere will warm by 2.7 degrees by 2040, increasing the likelihood of flooding on coastlines and exacerbating poverty. The report was stunning to some in that the dramatic changes would occur in just over 20 years.
The renewed attention hasn’t led to any new legislation, disappointing some lawmakers.
“So far we’ve just raised public awareness and mobilized about the emergency, but we have a long way to go until we get legislation passed,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told The Hill. “The scorecard in Washington is getting things done. It’s not just raising awareness.”
Moving forward on climate change legislation was always going to be difficult for Democrats with Trump in the White House and Republicans holding the Senate.
The House itself has not voted on a climate bill. Rep. Kathy Castor's (D-Fla.) Climate Action Now Act, which would bind the U.S. to the Paris climate agreement, has been voted out of committee but has yet to come to the House floor.
Khanna is one of many House Democrats who are still hoping to pass legislation before 2020.
“I think the visibility among members is very high. It’s a priority for [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and the leadership. I’d like to see more legislative proposals. They’ve done a good job in explaining the emergency but we need more specifics that will emerge throughout the process,” Khanna said.
“It’s not enough to have a vision. It’s enough to have concrete details. It’s such a complex issue. It’s going to take months to come up with well-crafted laws to deal with it.”
Khanna and others think it’s possible Democrats and Republicans, along with Trump, could compromise to find deals on capturing carbon emissions, expanding tax credits for electric vehicles and investing in wind farms and high-speed railways. Some Republicans have also gotten on board to co-sponsor bipartisan bills on the topics of carbon capture and investments in new energy technologies.
Cray said the renewed attention on climate change is a victory in the context of the political reality in Washington, pointing out the environmentalist groups who want to see larger, comprehensive climate bills will be waiting until 2020.
“Everybody recognizes that in this Congress you can’t bring it over the finish line,” he said. “Congress should focus on robust debate about what policies should come forward if you have a new administration after the next election.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/439605-climate-change-finds-new-momentum-with-voters
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A Climate Change Solution Slowly Gains Ground
Apr 19, 2019 | Washington Post
By Steven Mufson
At the end of a cul-de-sac called Fresh Way, two bright green structures the size of shipping containers gleam in the warm sunlight, quietly sucking from the air the carbon dioxide that is warming the planet.
One structure houses computer monitors and controls. Atop the other, large fans draw air through slabs made of honeycomb-style ceramic cubes. The cubes hold proprietary chemicals that act like sponges, absorbing carbon dioxide at room temperature. Every 15 minutes, the slabs rotate and the cubes are heated, releasing a stream of 99 percent pure carbon dioxide into a shiny steel pipe.
This is Global Thermostat, one of just three companies at the leading edge of the hunt for ways of skimming carbon dioxide from the air. It is a tiny step, but a hopeful one, toward reducing global warming. Amid a steady drumbeat of grim news about climate change, more and more people are captivated by the idea that a feasible process can help offset decades of damage to the atmosphere.
Some big deep-pocketed corporations — including oil companies — are looking, too. They are lured not so much by the virtues of fighting climate change but by the prospects of making money. Though long a prohibitively expensive technology, carbon capture has become a tantalizing possibility thanks to technological advances — and new generous government incentives.
There’s little time to spare. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has written that any hope to meet the 2 degree Celsius goal for global warming “will require measures to reduce emissions, including the further deployment of existing and new technologies.”
For a decade, the three companies — Carbon Engineering, Climeworks and Global Thermostat — have experimented with technologies such as the shape and chemical makeup of the spongelike membranes in an effort to reduce the towering cost of capturing carbon dioxide directly from thin air.
Now their work is poised to move beyond the lab tables and prototypes.
“Our business plan is to show that cleaning the atmosphere is a profitable activity,” said Graciela Chichilnisky, a Columbia University economics professor and one of the co-founders of Global Thermostat who estimates that CO2 could become a trillion dollar market.TOP: The Global Thermostat plant in Huntsville, Ala. Global Thermostat, Carbon Engineering and Climeworks are three companies at the leading edge of the hunt for ways of skimming carbon dioxide from the air.
Over the past several years, the firms have vied to make technological progress. The cost of carbon capture has fallen from $600 a ton to as low as $100 a ton — and lower if a cheap or free source of heat or energy is available.
Federal subsidies are just as important. New U.S. federal tax credits provide as much as $50 for every ton of carbon dioxide captured and stored underground in well-sealed geological formations.
Oil companies can use the credits to pay for turning captured carbon dioxide into transportation fuels, essentially recycling the CO2. That would help Big Oil meet California regulations requiring lower amounts of carbon in motor fuels.
And the oil giants can also claim a $35-a-ton credit for enhanced oil recovery — injecting carbon dioxide into the ground to increase well pressure and boost oil production in old fields like the Permian Basin in West Texas. Oil companies currently extract natural carbon dioxide from natural reservoirs before pumping it back into the ground.
The federal tax credits, known as 45Q credits, were slipped into the 2018 federal budget in the wee hours of Feb. 9, 2018, after a nine-hour government shutdown. It attracted support from both parties, with leading roles played by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), whose state relies heavily on oil, gas and coal production, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who has spoken almost weekly on the Senate floor about the urgency of climate change and the danger of burning fossil fuels.
One reason they agree: It’s politically more appealing to give away money through a tax credit than it is to impose a carbon tax that takes money away. A carbon tax is levied on the carbon content of hydrocarbon fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas that emit carbon dioxide and it raises prices for products such as gasoline or electricity.
Environmentalists are divided on the tax credits. Most want to bury captured carbon dioxide in geological formations underground rather than using it to produce more fossil fuels.
“We concluded that it was not possible to square it with our work to end fossil fuel subsidies,” said David Hawkins, director of climate policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which stayed neutral on the measure.
But of the 65 million tons of carbon dioxide that is pumped underground in the United States every year, about 60 million tons is for enhanced oil recovery, said Sally Benson, co-director of Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy. And demand is growing.
Whitehouse said “at this point, the only revenue proposition for carbon capture is enhanced oil recovery.”
“As angry and frustrated I am at the behavior of these companies," he said, "if that’s what it takes to save the planet I’m willing to make that investment.”
And Republican senators joined in the name of “innovation,” and seemed unbothered that by putting a price on the credits they were flouting the Trump administration’s effort to stymie any form of carbon tax.
“People now understand the need for addressing climate change,” Carbon Engineering’s chief executive Steve Oldham said in an interview after testifying before a Senate committee. “When you don’t have a solution, it’s a scary thought.”
“We’re trying to get the message out that there is a solution here,” he added, “and it is not forcing everybody to buy a new car or stop taking airplanes.”
A new skill set
Oldham himself is a sign that carbon capture is closer to becoming a business. He only recently took the helm at the 10-year-old Carbon Engineering, which has built a prototype on a scenic spot near an old lumber town about 30 miles north of Vancouver. Oldham wasn’t an expert on carbon capture, but he had worked at a big Canadian tech company raising money from government and commercial sources for complex projects such as large satellites and robotics.
Carbon Engineering “has been R&D focused,” Oldham said. “Now, they need a different skill set.”
The Squamish, British Columbia-based firm’s early investors included Bill Gates. And Carbon Engineering recently raised $68 million with investments from tar sands financier and Calgary Flames co-owner Murray Edwards, Occidental Petroleum’s Low Carbon Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, and BHP, an international mining and resources giant.
Oldham said the firm will use the money to design a full-size commercial plant and that it has already identified fives sites in the United States and two in Canad
Drawing on research at the University of Calgary and Carnegie Mellon University, Carbon Engineering converts carbon dioxide into transportation fuels. It does that by combining CO2 with hydrogen — creating a carbon neutral cycle. That could help oil companies meet California’s requirement to reduce the carbon intensity of motor fuels by 20 percent by 2030.
Harvard University engineering and public policy professor David W. Keith, acting chief scientist and a board member at Carbon Engineering, estimated in a paper last year that using current know-how and existing components, the company could capture carbon dioxide at $94 to $232 a ton. Even if Carbon Engineering’s technique is expensive, it might still be cheaper than alternative methods of meeting the California standards.
In addition, by producing fuel, Carbon Engineering could make air travel carbon neutral without having to turn to biofuels or electrification that would be difficult to use in aircraft.
“It gives you choices,” Oldham said.
Selling some fizz
Climeworks, based in Switzerland, was founded by two engineering graduate students, Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher. It became the first company to extract CO2 from the air and sell it to a commercial customer, albeit on a tiny scale. It sells about 900 tons a year — the equivalent of emissions from 200 cars — to a commercial greenhouse near Zurich that grows vegetables. The company has erected a vertical array of 18 fans, each the size of a full-grown adult that helps speed the capture process. The CO2 increases the greenhouse’s crop yields by 20 to 30 percent.
Climeworks has also forged an agreement to sell carbon dioxide to Coca-Cola HBC in Switzerland for sparkling drinks. Economics could drive future decisions. Last year Europe suffered carbon dioxide shortages when some British fertilizer plants that produce CO2 as a byproduct unexpectedly closed down for maintenance and Coke’s CO2 supplies were threatened.
Like Global Thermostat, Climeworks traps CO2 simply by exposing a filter to air. The filter contains amines, a derivative of ammonia. Once the filter is saturated, it is heated with steam past the boiling point of 100 degrees Celsius, hot enough to free the carbon dioxide so it can be pumped into pipes or storage tanks. Currently, the Climeworks uses free waste heat from a local incinerator, reducing its costs.
Farming the sky
Global Thermostat has a somewhat different model than the other two.
The company is the brainchild of two Columbia University professors: Chichilnisky, an economist and mathematician who took part in the 1990s climate conference in Kyoto, and Peter Eisenberger, an applied physicist who has worked at Bell Laboratories, Exxon, Princeton and now Columbia University. With his flyaway hair, he bears a passing resemblance to Dr. Emmett Brown from the film “Back to the Future.”
“When Peter and Graciela first talked about this, people thought it was crazy,” said Miles Sakwa-Novak, the plant’s young engineer. He says that Carbon Engineering essentially takes two mature processes and combines them in a new way, but that Global Thermostat is developing something new.
“We literally farm the sky,” Chichilnisky says in a company video.
The company’s early investors included the Canadian tycoon Edgar Bronfman and the utility NRG, one of the biggest U.S. emitters.
The company’s process uses devices called monoliths that look like sponges to maximize surface area. That area is covered with amines, the nitrogen based chemical that naturally absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. The monoliths are similar to those used in catalytic converters and Chichilnisky says that the manufacturer Corning has provided key materials.
The next step — prying the carbon dioxide loose — is harder and more expensive. Yet Global Thermostat only needs to heat up its amine cells to 80 degrees Celsius, less than what it takes to boil a cup of tea, lower than its competitors and thus relatively cheaper.
This is the dark secret of virtually all carbon capture techniques: They tend to use large amounts of energy, which adds to carbon emissions and costs. Some say they can be combined with solar installations. So far, Carbon Engineering has tapped into cheap Canadian hydro power.
Many analysts wonder why the direct air capture companies don’t place their devices near the exhaust of a natural gas or coal plant. Chichilnisky explains that sometimes lower concentrations work better, just as gasoline in a combustion engine needs oxygen. She said that their process requires less energy and works best at concentrations found in the air at 400 parts per million, 300 times more diffuse than in power plant smokestacks.
The compact size of the Global Thermostat project could be part of its appeal, Chichilnisky says. Companies with modest CO2 needs — such as soft drink bottlers or oil field service firms — can move Global Thermostat’s equipment to a site without having to worry about building pipelines. Global Thermostat is already in talks with a soft drink maker and a major oil company.
Big enough?
Chichilnisky is optimistic about Global Thermostat, but she’s worried carbon capture will be too little too late. “The real problem with climate change is time,” she says.
Time and scale. The carbon capture enterprises are minuscule compared to the global crisis.
In 2018, mankind pumped about 37.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide into the air. One of Global Thermostat’s container size units would capture just 4,000 tons; to offset all global emissions would take 9 million of the units.
Climeworks says it can manufacture 100 to 150 CO2 collectors a year, each one capable of sucking up the emissions of 250 cars. A unit with six Climeworks filters would fit in a shipping container. In order to meet its goal of capturing 1 percent of growing global emissions, Climeworks would need to fill up 750,000 shipping containers.
Arguing that is doable, Climeworks notes that it is equal to the number of shipping containers that pass through Shanghai harbor every two weeks.
Carbon Engineering is planning on much bigger projects, each costing close to $600 million, about the same as a coal-fired power plant. Oldham estimates that it would take 5,000 of his company’s plants to offset U.S. carbon emissions — 5.3 gigatons — at a cost of $3 trillion. That’s why, he says, “the real answer is a combination” or cutting emissions and building carbon capture.
What that means, Chichilnisky says, is that the fight to reduce emissions must continue. The danger of progress on carbon capture is that people will see it as a reason to relax their efforts.
Until now, carbon capture has been a bad bet financially. Since 2010, the Energy Department spent about $1.1 billion to help nine carbon capture and storage demonstration projects, the General Accountability Office said in a report. Private industry chipped in $610 million. But most found the cost way too high and abandoned the projects; only one power plant was still active at the end of 2017, GAO said.
Many coal companies see the federal carbon credits as a new lease on their lives. “The coal lobby was always in our office” seeking credits, said a former Energy Department official from the Obama administration who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But, he said, “carbon capture and storage makes coal more expensive, not less.”
Dan Kammen, professor of energy and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley, says that carbon capture is diverting attention from cheaper and more scalable ways to taking carbon dioxide out of the air.
“The prices [of carbon capture] would have to fall a huge amount for it to be part of our near-term portfolio, meaning 2050 or sooner,” Kammen says. Carbon capture from the air “can be an arrow in the quiver,” he says. But he adds that changing land use and forestry, using known techniques for taking CO2 from the air and storing it, “would be the best investment in carbon capture today.”
“I recommend the boring Charlie Brown strategy,” he says. “When is the best day to plant a tree? Yesterday. Second best? Today.”
New carbon capture technology is “the shiny new object on the table,” he says, but “with the 30-year clock more than ticking we have to scale up technology. We absolutely need to invest in carbon capture because we will have to do a good deal more of it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/04/19/climate-change-solution-slowly-gains-ground/?utm_term=.5aa00b801fe4
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