Preview Newsletter
AM ACC Clips Report - April 29, 2019
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Hearing on New Technologies in Plastics Recycling
Apr 30, 2019 | Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Location: 2318 Rayburn / 2:00 PM -
Hearing on Pipeline Safety Issues
May 1, 2019 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 10:00 AM -
Hearing on Federal Infrastructure Oversight
May 2, 2019 | Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Location: 342 Dirksen / 10:00 AM -
Hearing on the Health Effects on Climate Change
Apr 30, 2019 | Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment
Location: 2154 Rayburn / 2:00 PM -
Hearing on Pending Climate Legislation
Apr 29, 2019 | Rules Committee
Location: H-313 Capitol / 5:00 PM -
Hearing on Reducing Carbon Emissions
Apr 30, 2019 | Select Committee on the Climate Crisis
Location: 2247 Rayburn / 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) How Lobbyists Are Supporting Biden
Apr 26, 2019 | Politico - Politico Influence
By Theodoric Meyer
...In honor of World Intellectual Property Day, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center today released an ad “celebrating America’s innovation economy” co-signed by 72 trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council, Motion Picture Association of America, National Association of Broadcasters, National Retail Federation and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. -
(ACC Mentioned) Recession Fears Diminish as the Nation Approaches a Goldilocks Economy
Apr 26, 2019 | HousingWire
By Alcynna Lloyd
For months, several reports indicated the U.S economy was quickly approaching what many feared to be a recession. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Chemical Secrecy Rule Mostly Passes DC Circ. Muster
Apr 26, 2019 | Law 360
By Juan Carlos Rodriguez
The D.C. Circuit on Friday largely upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approach to when companies may claim certain chemical information is confidential under the Toxic Substances Control Act, but did find the EPA gave businesses too much leeway in one key regard. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Submits PBT Plan for White House Review
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
EPA has submitted its draft rule for limiting exposure to five persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, the latest in a flurry of draft rules as the agency seeks to meet deadlines in the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
D.C. Circuit Affirms Public’s Right to Know about Chemicals in Use under Reformed Law
Apr 26, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered a strong rebuke to the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) implementation of the nation’s chemical safety law, protecting key aspects of the public’s right to know about the toxic chemicals in our homes, schools, and workplaces. -
Court Faults EPA's 'Nonsensical' Elimination Of TSCA Rule's CBI Provision
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal court has rejected Trump EPA efforts to drop a provision from its rule re-setting the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory that had required companies to substantiate a category of confidential business information (CBI) claims, finding its “explanation for excising that criterion was, nonsensically, a denial that it had done so." -
D.C. Circuit Partially Denies Petition for Review of TSCA Inventory Rule
Apr 27, 2019 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On April 26, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit) issued its order on petition for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements (82 Fed. Reg. 37520 (Aug. 11, 2017)), which denied the petition for review on all but one claim. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Rule Sent Back to EPA on Trade Secret Concerns
Apr 26, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
An EPA rule failed to require chemical manufacturers to sufficiently prove that they’ve protected their chemical’s secret identity from discovery through reverse engineering, a federal court ruled April 26. -
Senators Seek Broad GAO Probe Of DOD's PFAS Liabilities, Policy Stance
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
The bipartisan leadership of the Senate governmental affairs committee is asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to open a probe into the environmental liabilities facing federal agencies such as the Defense Department (DOD) as they grapple with cleanup of the emerging contaminants per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). -
Critics Accuse EPA of Weakening Pollution Rule for Pentagon
Apr 29, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Beitsch
Critics say an Environment Protection Agency (EPA) proposal would weaken the Pentagon's obligation to deal with harmful chemicals that pollute groundwater near military bases. -
EPA Yet Again Fails to Set Health-Protective Levels for PFAS
Apr 26, 2019 | Natural Resource Defense Council
By Anna Reade
Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft interim recommendations for addressing groundwater contaminated with PFOA and PFOS, just two of a class of approximately 4,700 chemicals of health and environmental concern. -
3M Settles Nonstick Chemical Suit with Alabama Water Utility
Apr 26, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Chris Marr
3M Company struck a deal to settle water contamination claims by an Alabama municipal water utility, allowing the utility to install a multimillion-dollar filtration system without raising customer rates. -
Senate Democrats Urge Commercial Ban of Methylene Chloride
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
Democratic leaders in the Senate are urging EPA to ban commercial uses of the paint stripper methylene chloride, saying the Trump administration's decision to limit its ban to consumer uses and merely consider requiring additional training for workers using the chemical leaves a vulnerable population at risk. -
Expert Focus: The Impact of the EU's Glyphosate Court Ruling
Apr 29, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Olivia Jamison
On 7 March the General Court of the European Union ruled on two legal challenges concerning an EU body’s refusal to allow access to studies relating to glyphosate. -
House Committee to Target Trump Energy Policies
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Scott Streater
Democrats are expected to push for more renewable energy development on federal lands during a House Natural Resources oversight hearing tomorrow where the Trump administration's energy policies are expected to take center stage. -
Courts Derail Trump's March to 'Energy Dominance'
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Bit by bit, federal judges across the country have begun to chip away at the foundation of the Trump administration's energy agenda. -
EPA Decides Not to Regulate Fracking Wastewater as Pennsylvania Study Reveals Recent Spike
Apr 27, 2019 | Truthout
By Sharon Kelly
On April 23, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told two environmental groups that it had decided it was “not necessary” to update the federal standards handling toxic waste from oil and gas wells, including the waste produced by fracking. -
BLM Asks Court to Dismiss Montana Oil, Gas Lease Case
Apr 26, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Three weeks after voluntarily dropping its opposition to reinstating two oil and gas leases in northwestern Montana, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has asked a federal appeals court to dismiss a case for lack of jurisdiction. -
NextDecade's $15B LNG Project Hits Key Permitting Milestone
Apr 26, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Marissa Luck
Federal regulators have released a key environmental study of NextDecade's proposed Rio Grande LNG project – an important milestone in permitting for the 27 million metric ton liquefied natural gas terminal in Brownsville, the third of three LNG projects proposed for Rio Grande Valley. -
Perry Heads Back to Europe to Promote Exports
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Jeremy Dillon
Trump administration officials, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, will travel to Belgium later this week as part of a first-of-its-kind business-to-business summit meant to promote U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas. -
Husky Refinery Explosion in Wis. Prompts Recommendation to Review Use of Hydrogen Fluoride
Apr 26, 2019 | Minneapolis Star Tribune
By Mike Hughlett
Prompted by the Husky refinery explosion in Superior, Wis., federal chemical safety investigators are advocating a review of the oil refining industry's use of hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic chemical. -
(ACC Mentioned) Growth Prospects Soar for Eagle Transport
Apr 29, 2019 | Rocky Mount Telegram
By Lawrence Bivins
The Rocky Mount-headquartered company, Eagle Transport Corp., is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. -
Panel Schedules Hearing in Shadow of White House Meeting
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee lawmakers will explore infrastructure this week after a high-profile White House meeting on the subject. -
EPA Approval Of Texas ‘Affirmative Defense’ Hints At National Policy Shift
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is proposing to approve Texas’ plan to offer an “affirmative defense” shielding companies from certain Clean Air Act enforcement actions when air law violations are due to unplanned events, suggesting a possible shift in national policy from the Obama administration’s general prohibition on states being able to offer the waiver. -
EPA to Let Texas Shield Plants From Malfunction-Related Penalties
Apr 26, 2019 | Politico Pro
By Alex Guillén
EPA plans to allow Texas to shield the state's power plants, refineries and other industrial plants from civil penalties for pollution emitted during malfunctions, a move that could set the stage for similar allowances for other states. -
New EPA Document Tells Communities to Brace for Climate Change Impacts
Apr 27, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
The Environmental Protection Agency published a 150-page document this past week with a straightforward message for coping with the fallout from natural disasters across the country: Start planning for the fact that climate change is going to make these catastrophes worse. -
Lawmakers Seek to Reduce Impact of Plastic Waste
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Philip Athey
The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology will hold what leaders hope is the first in a series of hearings about how emerging technologies can help reduce the environmental impact of plastic. -
Paris Legislation a 'Good Start,' but Advocates Expect More
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
The House will return this week to another barrage of climate messaging, including a vote on leadership's bill to keep the United States in the Paris climate agreement, a move Republicans are expected to loudly oppose. -
California Restaurants Add Optional 1 Percent Surcharge to Help Combat Climate Change
Apr 27, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Morgan Gstalter
Some California restaurant-goers will now have the option to add a 1 percent surcharge to their bill to help farmers combat climate change.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
TSCA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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Hearing on New Technologies in Plastics Recycling
Apr 30, 2019 | Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology
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Hearing on Pipeline Safety Issues
May 1, 2019 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy
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Hearing on Federal Infrastructure Oversight
May 2, 2019 | Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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Hearing on the Health Effects on Climate Change
Apr 30, 2019 | Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment
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Hearing on Pending Climate Legislation
Apr 29, 2019 | Rules Committee
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Hearing on Reducing Carbon Emissions
Apr 30, 2019 | Select Committee on the Climate Crisis
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(ACC Mentioned) How Lobbyists Are Supporting Biden
Apr 26, 2019 | Politico - Politico Influence
By Theodoric Meyer
BIDEN WON’T TAKE LOBBYISTS’ MONEY, BUT K STREET IS SUPPORTING HIM ANYWAY: Joe Biden became the latest Democratic presidential candidate to swear off contributions from lobbyists and corporate PACs when he entered the race on Thursday. End Citizens United PAC, which encourages Democrats to forgo corporate PAC money, hailed him for doing so. “Vice President Biden is sending a powerful message to Americans about who he would be accountable to as President,” Patrick Burgwinkle, a spokesperson for End Citizens United PAC, wrote in an email to POLITICO.
— But K Street is still giving Biden a hand. Larry Rasky, a longtime Biden adviser who leads the lobbying and public affairs firm Rasky Partners, sent a fundraising email on Wednesday urging supporters to help Biden “bring in as much money as possible as quickly as possible.” A follow-up email asked donors to send checks made out to “Biden for President” to Rasky’s offices in Boston, addressed to George Cronin, a managing director at the firm, or Kristyn Anderson, Larry Rasky’s chief of staff.
— Rasky and Cronin aren’t federal lobbyists, but they’re registered to lobby in Massachusetts. Cronin “is responsible for government relations, lobbying, procurement & business development representation, ballot initiatives and grassroots organizing,” according to Rasky’s website. Rasky Partners also lobbies for clients such as Raytheon in Washington. Rasky and Cronin didn’t respond to requests for comment.
— Biden also held a kickoff fundraiser Thursday at the home of David Cohen, a Comcast executive who oversees the company’s lobbying efforts, though he isn’t a lobbyist himself. And Stuart Eizenstat, a senior counsel at Covington & Burling who was resigned to lobby until recently, told POLITICO he planned to advise Biden’s campaign on foreign policy. “If Biden runs, I’ll be working as much as time allows for him,” Eizenstat said in an interview last week before Biden announced. Eizenstat said he didn’t consider himself a lobbyist and hadn’t contacted a member of Congress in years.
— As a relatively moderate Democrat, Biden is popular on K Street. But he wasn’t viewed as especially close to lobbyists during his decades in the Senate and eight years as vice president. His habit of commuting back and forth to Delaware each day left him with little time to hobnob with lobbyists at breakfast fundraisers or happy hour receptions. Biden “didn’t ... hit the fundraising circuit hard as a senator,” said John D. Raffaelli of Capitol Counsel, a longtime Democratic lobbyist. “He wasn’t trying to build relationships in the downtown world.” “He’s not a K Street guy,” said Joel Johnson of the Glover Park Group, who gave $2,300 to Biden’s last presidential campaign in 2007. Still, Biden’s staff “was always professional and available and open-minded” about hearing out lobbyists, Johnson said.
— Some of Biden’s former aides on K Street are registered lobbyists and won’t be able to write checks to his campaign. They include Tony Russo, the top lobbyist for T-Mobile; Jeffrey Peck of Peck Madigan Jones, who lobbies for clients such as Anheuser-Busch; and Chris Putala of Putala Strategies, who lobbies for clients including Comcast, Oracle, Sprint and T-Mobile. Biden is so close to Russo that he’s described him as a “third son,” according to The Washington Post.
— But other former Biden aides aren’t registered to lobby, meaning they could donate to Biden. Danny O’Brien, for instance, a former Biden chief of staff while he was in the Senate, is now Fox’s head of government relations but is not a registered lobbyist. And Alan Hoffman, a former deputy chief of staff to Biden while he was vice president, is now an executive vice president at Herbalife, where he oversees its lobbying work but isn’t a registered lobbyist himself. Full story.
Good afternoon, and welcome to PI. Tips: tmeyer@politico.com. You can also follow me on Twitter: @theodoricmeyer.
TESLA HIRES MEHLMAN CASTAGNETTI: Tesla has hired Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas to lobby on the Driving America Forward Act, H.R. 2256 (116), a bill introduced by Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) and other House Democrats dealing with electric and fuel cell car tax credits. The electric car company started by Elon Musk spent $180,000 on lobbying in the first quarter and also retains Holland & Knight, Tai Ginsberg & Associates and West Front Strategies. Tesla recently split with Steptoe & Johnson.
RUSSIAN WOMAN GETS 18 MONTHS IN FOREIGN AGENT CASE: “A Russian who infiltrated the National Rifle Association and tried to get Donald Trump to meet with a Kremlin-linked official during the 2016 election was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison,” POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein reports. “Mariia Butina, a gun-rights promoter and graduate student in America, has been in jail since her arrest last July on charges of conspiracy and allegations that she was operating as an unregistered foreign agent. The sentence — which coincidentally came the same day Trump spoke to the NRA — means Butina could be deported to her native Russia in about nine months, as U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan gave Butina credit for time served.” Full story.
TODAY’S ADS: In honor of World Intellectual Property Day, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center today released an ad“celebrating America’s innovation economy” co-signed by 72 trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council, Motion Picture Association of America, National Association of Broadcasters, National Retail Federation and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. The group is promoting the ad on social and geofencing it in Washington.
JOBS REPORT
— Matt Giacona is leaving Venn Strategies to join the International Association of Drilling Contractors as a legislative assistant.
— Ogilvy Government Relations has hired Julia Convertini as a legislative assistant. She was previously the Republican Attorneys General Association’s political coordinator.
HAPPENING NOW—DON’T MISS OUT ON #MIGLOBAL: POLITICO’s Ben White is at the Milken Institute Global Conference reporting on the top conversations, major takeaways and buzzy VIP sightings from one of the most influential gatherings of the world’s leading minds in business, technology, government, media, health care and entertainment. Sign up for his special Milken edition “Morning Money” newsletter for a daily rundown of everything you need to know happening at #MIGLOBAL in Beverly Hills, Calif.
NEW JOINT FUNDRAISERS
HRW Victory Fund (Reps. Richard Hudson, Tom Reed and Michael Waltz, NRCC)
NEW PACS
Blue Leadership Collaboration (PAC)
BOPIUSA (Super PAC)
House Strategies Fund (Super PAC)
People Igniting Democracy Globally for Everyone (PAC)
Republicans for the Enforcement, Protection, Incorporation, and Preservation of the 7th Amendment (PAC)
Republicans for the Protection and Preservation of the 7th Amendment (PAC)
Senate Minority Fund (Super PAC)
Senate Strategies Fund (Super PAC)NEW LOBBYING REGISTRATIONS
Mayer Brown LLP: Salim Group, Inc.
McDermott Will & Emery LLP: Woodland Pulp, LLC
Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, Inc.: Tesla, Inc.
Midfield Consulting LLC: American Automotive Leasing Association
Midfield Consulting LLC: NADA/ATD
Peter Pitsch: 5G Everywhere in America, LLC on behalf of C-Band Alliance
S-3 Group: Third Option Foundation
The Color Nine Group, LLC: Walton County TDCTRANSFORMING THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN SCHOOLS: A movement is afoot to bring into U.S. schools tools, practices and curricula that reduce student's trauma and stress, and improve learning and student well-being. Join POLITICO on Thursday, May 2, for a high-level conversation on how this movement seeks to transform the learning environment in schools.
NEW LOBBYING TERMINATIONS
Bluestone Strategies, LLC: Silverlink Communications LLC
Bob Riley & Associates, LLC: VT Systems, Inc.
Peter Pitsch: Intel Corporation
Wildhorse Consulting: Animal Hope and Wellness Foundation** A message from the Household & Commercial Products Association: The Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA) represents the trusted brands that make our lives cleaner and healthier – from cleaners and detergents to air fresheners and pest control. Our principles include sound scientific reasoning, competition, innovation and job creation. Our members employ 200,000 people in the U.S., with more than a quarter of those jobs in manufacturing. Ranging from family businesses to Fortune 500 companies, our members contribute $180 billion to the economy and are 0.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, making this industry an important part of our thriving economy. THE HOUSEHOLD & COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS ASSOCIATION. INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS FOR HOME. WORK. LIFE. READ MORE HERE.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2019/04/26/how-lobbyists-are-supporting-biden-429411
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(ACC Mentioned) Recession Fears Diminish as the Nation Approaches a Goldilocks Economy
Apr 26, 2019 | HousingWire
By Alcynna Lloyd
For months, several reports indicated the U.S economy was quickly approaching what many feared to be a recession.
After all, America’s looming trade war with China ignited geopolitical headwinds that posed a significant threat to the nation’s economy.
In fact, a poll of economists conducted by Reuters revealed that the median probability of a recession within the next year rose to 25% in January.
Additionally, a survey produced by the National Association for Business Economics, which detailed the economic predictions of 281 members, determined that 75% of its economists expected the economy to slip into a recession by the end of 2021.
“Three-fourths of the NABE Policy Survey panelists expect an economic recession by the end of 2021,” said NABE President Kevin Swift, CBE, chief economist at the American Chemistry Council. “While only 10% of panelists expect a recession in 2019, 42% say a recession will happen in 2020, and 25% expect one in 2021.”
These economic projections paired with mounting evidence that the nation’s housing market was slowing down pointed to the probability of an approaching recession.
However, Friday’s Gross Domestic Product report produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis signaled the economy was strengthening. In fact, Q1's readings even surpassedthe 2.4% growth estimate produced by a poll of economists conducted by CNBC and Moody's analytics.
According to the Bureau's advanced estimate, real GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.2% in the first quarter of 2019, compared with a gain of 2.2% in the prior three months.
This marks the first acceleration of growth since mid-2018, highlighting economic improvement.
"Although this advance estimate is subject to revision, if it holds up, this faster growth should continue to provide strong support for the job and housing markets,” Mortgage Bankers Association Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni said. “Growth was driven in the first quarter by an increase in inventories and a strong reading on net exports, two factors which could be reversed in the second quarter. Household spending growth actually slowed a bit in the first quarter, which is a bit contrary to recent strong readings on retail sales. Overall, a solid start of the year for the economy.”
Although Fratantoni said Q1’s results were strong, Navy Federal Credit Union Corporate Economist Robert Frick claims they are actually skewed.
“GDP stomped estimates, coming in at 3.2%, but the first quarter report was market by unusual data that inflated it temporarily--mainly short-term boosts from higher inventories and from trade (which added one percentage point alone),” Frick said. “If you factor out those one-offs, you get GDP rising at just 1.3%, as measured by final sales to private domestic purchasers.”
If GDP growth did rise at 1.3% this means Q1’s acceleration falls behind the fourth quarter of 2018, signalling the economy still has a tangible risk of an oncoming recession.
That being said, Frick notes that the economy can still find its way out of the woods as the likeliness of a recession may be a long way off.
The data may be showing that the economy is growing, but not fast enough to spark a level of inflation that would force the Fed to hike rates. That balanced state of "not too hot, not too cold" is known as a "Goldilocks economy," a phrase coined by economist David Shulman in the 1990s.
“First, inflation was low, indicating that the Fed had no reason to raise rates that could tip the economy into a contraction. Second, while the headline number was 3.2%, after backing out trade and inventories the number was just 1.3%, showing the economy isn't overheating, which again could prompt the Fed to raise rates," Frick said. "Finally, while the 1.3%, as measured by 'final sales to privated domestic purchasers' is a low number, it will rise with the recovery of consumer spending and some other factors. So a reasonable forecast for GDP this year is 2% to 2.5%, which, together with a strong jobs market and rising wages, point to a healthy Goldilocks economy with no looming economic issues in sight."
https://www.housingwire.com/articles/48890-recession-fears-diminish-as-the-nation-approaches-a-goldilocks-economy
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA's Chemical Secrecy Rule Mostly Passes DC Circ. Muster
Apr 26, 2019 | Law 360
By Juan Carlos Rodriguez
The D.C. Circuit on Friday largely upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approach to when companies may claim certain chemical information is confidential under the Toxic Substances Control Act, but did find the EPA gave businesses too much leeway in one key regard.
Under Congress' 2016 amendments to TSCA, known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, the EPA was required to come up with a rule to update its list of chemicals. The final version of this "inventory rule" was issued by the Trump administration in August 2017, but differed from the Obama administration's proposal in that it gave companies more ways to keep certain chemicals' identities secret.
To prove that the identity of those chemicals should be kept out of the public eye, businesses must meet several standards. But the final rule eliminated a proposed hurdle requiring companies to prove the chemical "is not readily discoverable through reverse engineering."
The three-judge appeals court panel said that in that respect, the rule failed to meet Congress' TSCA mandate.
"The problem for the EPA is that [TSCA] does not accept a company’s assertions at face value," the panel said. "Quite the opposite, the statute specifically requires the company to 'substantiate' its confidentiality claim."
In the Trump administration's rewrite of the Obama-era proposed rule, the EPA erased every question that addressed TSCA's requirement that "a substance’s chemical identity not be susceptible to reverse engineering," the panel said.
"[The EPA's] omission of any inquiry into a chemical identity's susceptibility to reverse engineering effectively excised a statutorily required criterion from the substantiation process," the panel said, remanding the rule to the agency for another rewrite.
The Environmental Defense Fund, which challenged the inventory rule, praised the ruling.
"EPA will now have to require significantly more evidence from companies before they can conceal the identities of chemicals they make and sell," Robert Stockman, an EDF attorney, said in a statement Friday. "As a result, fewer such claims will be allowed and workers, consumers and the public will gain access to more information about those chemicals."
But the group had challenged four other components of the rule for which the panel found the EPA was owed deference.
EDF had claimed the inventory rule gave more companies an easier opportunity to "maintain an existing confidentiality claim" than TSCA allows because the rule lets any company that uses the chemical, not just the inventor, to claim confidentiality. The panel said the law doesn't actually address that point, so EPA's interpretation is acceptable.
The group had also claimed the the rule established that confidential information will be "treated and disclosed" with other agency regulations that it said don't reflect TSCA's standards. But the panel found that the inventory rule’s confidentiality provisions "complement and elaborate upon" some of TSCA's requirements "without displacing the others."
EDF also lost on its claim that the inventory should have, but didn't, require a "unique public identifier" for each chemical kept confidential. The panel agreed that TSCA requires such an identifier, but said the law did not say that particular aspect had to be part of the inventory rule.
"Unlike the statutory command to promulgate the inventory rule within a year, the act establishes no deadline for the EPA’s development and implementation of unique identifiers," the panel said.
Finally, the EDF lost on its claim that the EPA improperly said companies don't have to inform the agency about the manufacture or processing of export-only chemicals. The panel said Congress didn't clearly say what should happen in those instances, and so the EPA's interpretation of the act was permissible.
"The EPA explained that [TSCA] insulates export chemicals from numerous other statutory requirements, including prospective reporting requirements," the panel said. "All the EPA did here is exempt those same export chemicals from the act's retrospective reporting requirements."
Allison Starmann, deputy general counsel for the American Chemistry Council, which intervened in the case on behalf of the EPA along with several other industry trade groups, said in a Friday statement the ruling shows the EPA's approach was "consistent with the statute and congressional intent."
"EPA is obligated to protect [confidential business information] under the 2016 TSCA amendments, which is important because it safeguards intellectual property, while ensuring that state officials, medical professionals and first responders have access to critical information when they need it," Starmann said.
EPA spokesperson Enesta Jones said the agency is reviewing the decision.
U.S. Circuit Judges Merrick B. Garland, Patricia A. Millett and Harry T. Edwards sat on the panel.
The EPA is represented by Phillip R. Dupré of the U.S. Department of Justice and Elizabeth Thaler of the EPA.
The EDF is represented by its own Robert P. Stockman.
The American Chemistry Council, American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute, American Forest & Paper Association, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, American Petroleum Institute, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, EPS Industry Alliance, IPC International, Inc., National Association of Chemical Distributors, National Association of Manufacturers and National Mining Association are represented by Peter D. Keisler, Samuel B. Boxerman, Timothy K. Webster, C. Frederick Becker III, Judah Prero and Samina M. Bharmal of Sidley Austin LLP. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers is also represented by its own Richard Moskowitz and Taylor Hoverman. The National Association of Manufacturers is also represented by its own Linda E. Kelly and Leland P. Frost. The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America is also represented by its own Steven P. Lehotsky and Michael B. Schon.
The Polyurethane Manufacturers Association is represented by Donald P. Gallo of Axley Brynelson LLP. The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates is represented by James W. Conrad Jr. of Conrad Law & Policy Counsel. The American Coatings Association is represented by David B. Weinberg, Martha E. Marrapese and Roger H. Miksad of Wiley Rein LLP.
The case is Environmental Defense Fund v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency et al., number 17-1201 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
https://www.law360.com/appellate/articles/1153920/epa-s-chemical-secrecy-rule-mostly-passes-dc-circ-muster
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Submits PBT Plan for White House Review
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
EPA has submitted its draft rule for limiting exposure to five persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, the latest in a flurry of draft rules as the agency seeks to meet deadlines in the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
But the proposal, submitted to OMB April 24, is likely to face litigation once issued as environmentalists and industry groups have called for competing approaches on what criteria the agency should use to identify substances for regulation.
Section 6(h) of TSCA requires that EPA develop by June 2019 a draft rule to minimize public exposure to PBT chemicals identified through an Obama EPA screening process. The statute further requires that EPA finalize the rule by December 2020.
The Obama EPA announced its plans to review five chemicals it identified as PBT under criteria laid out in TSCA section 6(h). The statute sets an expedited risk process for PBT chemicals, directing EPA to conduct a streamlined evaluation that considers uses and exposures to the substances but not toxicity. EPA must then take steps to impose limitation sufficient to reduce exposure to the “extent practicable.”
Comments filed on the chemicals, however, suggest that industry may challenge the criteria EPA used to select the five chemicals. TSCA section 6(h) defines PBT chemicals as those meeting certain criteria laid out in the Obama EPA's 2012 TSCA work plan chemicals methods document “or a successor scoring system,” language the American Chemistry Council (ACC) bases its January 2018 comments upon.
ACC urged EPA to update its PBT criteria before conducting use and exposure assessments under the streamlined review process to be “consistent with the best available science,” the group's comments state. ACC argues that EPA's workplan chemicals program was based on science from the late 1970s and early 80s.
And the group argues a 2008 Society of Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) summary of SETAC's Pellston Workshop found that science has produced an array of new methods for identifying PBTs but regulatory criteria have failed to keep up.
By contrast, in joint comments a coalition of environmental groups argued that Congress specifically backed the PBT criteria in the Obama EPA's workplan. “To now jettison the Congressionally-approved and internationally-accepted Workplan criteria would be not only irresponsible but a reckless reversal of EPA's determination nearly a year ago that the five PBTs are subject to section 6(h) because they meet these criteria,” the groups wrote.
Further, the groups wrote that altering the criteria would require a lengthy public process, including significant input from the scientific community, and have implications far beyond TSCA. They also faulted ACC's suggested alternative, arguing that SETAC's 2008 paper on the Pellston Workshop has not been adequately peer reviewed and carries an industry bias.
The five chemicals identified for regulation are: Decabromodiphenyl ethers (DecaBDE), used as a flame retardant in textiles, plastics and polyurethane foam; Hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD), used in the manufacture of rubber compounds and lubricants and as a solvent; Pentachlorothio-phenol (PCTP), used as an agent to make rubber more pliable in industrial uses; Tris (4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate, used as a flame retardant in consumer products and other industrial uses; and 2,4,6-Tris(tert-butyl)phenol, used as a fuel, oil, gasoline or lubricant additive.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/epa-submits-pbt-plan-white-house-review
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D.C. Circuit Affirms Public’s Right to Know about Chemicals in Use under Reformed Law
Apr 26, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered a strong rebuke to the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) implementation of the nation’s chemical safety law, protecting key aspects of the public’s right to know about the toxic chemicals in our homes, schools, and workplaces.
The Court agreed with EDF that EPA had failed to require companies to show that the identities of their chemicals cannot be reverse-engineered in order to claim them confidential under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The Court remanded the rule back to EPA to require that companies make this showing to claim confidentiality. The Court also affirmed that other key TSCA requirements apply to confidentiality claims despite EPA’s failure to include them in its regulations.
“This decision is a significant win for public disclosure and a strong affirmation by the Court of the public’s right to know about the chemicals to which we all are or may be exposed. The Court ruled that EPA must require companies to provide real substantiation for their claims for confidentiality – and that EPA had failed to do so in the rule we challenged,” said Robert Stockman, Senior Attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. “EPA will now have to require significantly more evidence from companies before they can conceal the identities of chemicals they make and sell. As a result, fewer such claims will be allowed and workers, consumers and the public will gain access to more information about those chemicals.”
In the case, EDF v. EPA (D.C. Cir. 17-1201), EDF aimed to ensure that EPA upholds the requirements set forth in the reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to maximize transparency and public knowledge about which chemicals are currently in use by narrowing the grounds for asserting confidentiality claims and requiring more scrutiny of them. The Court affirmed that these requirements apply despite EPA’s failure to incorporate them into its regulation.
“A key goal of the reformed chemical safety law is to make more information public about the chemicals we’re exposed to at home, in our workplaces and schools, and through our environment.” said Dr. Richard Denison, Lead Senior Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund. “While the Trump EPA has taken every opportunity to skirt its responsibility and conceal information that the public has a right to know, the Court’s decision today affirms that the law trumps those efforts.”
On some issues, the Court gave deference to EPA in interpreting the law as it did: EPA’s decision to delay assigning “unique identifiers” to certain chemicals with confidential chemical identities; and its decision to exempt chemicals made only for export from the law’s Inventory notification requirement. Finally, the Court unfortunately ruled that EPA could in its discretion allow any manufacturer or processor to make a claim for the confidentiality of a chemical, regardless of whether that company had previously made such a claim. While EDF does not agree with the Court’s characterization of our position, the Court cited the Chevron standard that provides agencies with considerable deference.
For more background on the decision, see the bullets below. For more information on this and other lawsuits challenging EPA’s implementation of TSCA, see: https://www.edf.org/health/tsca-case-resources.
Additional background on today’s decision:
The Court ruled that EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it failed to require companies to “substantiate” that a chemical identity they wish to keep confidential is not “readily discoverable through reverse engineering.” “[EPA’s] omission of any inquiry into a chemical identity’s susceptibility to reverse engineering effectively excised a statutorily required criterion from the substantiation process.” Based on this ruling, the Court remanded the Rule back to EPA to revise its substantiation process and require companies’ substantiations to address reverse engineering when claiming confidentiality for their chemicals. As a result, fewer such claims will be allowed and workers, consumers, and the public will gain access to more information about those chemicals.
While EDF did not win on our claim that EPA erred by failing to incorporate certain statutory requirements for confidentiality claims into its regulation, the Court ruled that those requirements are nevertheless binding on EPA regardless of the regulation and affirmed that EPA must comply with those requirements going forward. “Should the EPA’s future implementation of these provisions of the Inventory Rule fall short of statutory mandates, a challenge can be raised then.” Our goal was to ensure that EPA would be bound by those requirements despite the regulation, and the Opinion ensures that is the case.
With respect to unique identifiers, the Court ruled that EPA has discretion to address those requirements separately through another process. EDF participated in that process and succeeded in convincing EPA to adopt a significantly better system than it originally proposed. EDF continues to urge EPA to develop and timely implement the unique identifier system, which to date has fallen well short of the mark: Despite EPA’s allowance for hundreds of chemical identities to be kept confidential, to date it has assigned only 157 unique identifiers.
Unfortunately, the Court ruled that EPA has discretion to allow any manufacturer or processor to make a claim for confidentiality regardless of whether that company had previously made such a claim. EDF does not agree with the Court’s characterization of our position as only allowing the original claimant to make a claim. Our view was that any manufacturer or processor who had previously made a claim could maintain an existing claim through this process; our objection is that persons making new claims through this process are not maintaining an existing claim within the meaning of the statute. Nonetheless, the Court reached a different conclusion under the Chevron standard that provides agencies with considerable deference.
Similarly, the Court ruled that EPA has discretion to exempt export-only chemicals from reporting under Section 8 despite the fact that Section 8 applies to export-only chemicals. The Court agreed with EDF that Section 8 does apply to export-only chemicals, but found that EPA could nonetheless exempt them from Inventory notification. The consequence of the Court’s decision is that the public will not know that chemicals produced solely for export in the United States are being produced.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/04/26/d-c-circuit-affirms-publics-right-to-know-about-chemicals-in-use-under-reformed-law/#more-8729
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Court Faults EPA's 'Nonsensical' Elimination Of TSCA Rule's CBI Provision
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
A federal court has rejected Trump EPA efforts to drop a provision from its rule re-setting the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) inventory that had required companies to substantiate a category of confidential business information (CBI) claims, finding its “explanation for excising that criterion was, nonsensically, a denial that it had done so."
Ruling April 26 in Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) v. EPA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that EPA's decision to drop a question related to how companies substantiate their CBI claims in cases where the identities of their chemicals could be reverse-engineered was arbitrary and capricious and remanded that portion of the rule back to EPA.
“The EPA’s Rule offers no sensible explanation at all for that gap in substantiation, nor does it even acknowledge the consequence of its omission. That error is fatal. The Inventory Rule is arbitrary and capricious to the extent that it omits any substantiation requirement pertaining to reverse engineering,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote for the panel, which also included Chief Judge Merrick Garland and Judge Harry Edwards.
While the panel also rejected EDF's four other claims related to the rule's CBI provisions, the court appeared to acknowledge that some of the group's arguments were correct and left the door open to future Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claims on at least one of those issues.
“There is no question that the Inventory Rule does not implement” additional CBI requirements that EDF had argued the agency was required to include in the rule. “But the APA is patient. Or at least more patient than Environmental Defense,” Millett wrote.
Despite losing on most of its claims, EDF nevertheless welcomed the decision. Robert Stockman, a senior attorney with EDF who argued the case, calls the decision “a significant win for public disclosure and a strong affirmation by the Court of the public’s right to know about the chemicals to which we all are or may be exposed.”
“The Court ruled that EPA must require companies to provide real substantiation for their claims for confidentiality -- and that EPA had failed to do so in the rule we challenged. EPA will now have to require significantly more evidence from companies before they can conceal the identities of chemicals they make and sell,” Stockman says.
“As a result, fewer such claims will be allowed and workers, consumers and the public will gain access to more information about those chemicals.”
At issue was EPA's 2017 final rule resetting the inventory of chemicals subject to regulation under TSCA, which Congress overhauled in 2016.
The rule was one of three framework regulations implementing the revised statute that the Trump EPA issued in 2017, with all three facing legal challenge.
But the D.C. Circuit's ruling in this case is the first by an appellate court -- though the court's finding on the rejected claims suggests additional litigation is likely.
EDF Petition
In its petition, EDF claimed that the administration's changes to criteria for substantiating businesses' CBI claims in the Obama EPA's proposed version violate the revised TSCA and the APA.
According to the ruling, the group challenged five CBI provisions, including EPA's exclusion of substantiation questions regarding reverse engineering; the rule’s criteria for “maintaining” a confidentiality claim; EPA’s decision not to incorporate certain regulatory requirements into the Inventory Rule; EPA’s failure to implement the law's “unique identifier” requirements in this rulemaking; and the rule’s exemption of exported chemicals from its notification requirements.
Much of the time allowed for oral argument of the case last Oct. 12 centered around the agency's decision to remove questions regarding the ability to reverse engineer a chemical’s identity from criteria for substantiating a CBI claim -- to the extent that the Justice Department attorney representing EPA did not have time to present in court his argument that EDF did not have standing to sue.
According to the ruling, EPA argued that the omission of the reverse-engineering provision was “intended to more succinctly secure answers for the basis of the [confidentiality] assertions.”
But the court rejected the argument. “Succinctness means no unnecessary words; it does not mean no words at all.”
As such, the court agreed with EDF that “the reverse-engineering aspect of the Inventory Rule comes up short,” Millett's opinion states.
EPA's “omission of any inquiry into a chemical identity’s susceptibility to reverse engineering effectively excised a statutorily required criterion from the substantiation process. . . . Lest there be any doubt, the agency conceded at oral argument that the Inventory Rule eliminated the only questions that substantiate the assertion that 'the information is not readily discoverable through reverse engineering.'”
While the court rejected EPA arguments on the reverse-engineering provision, it backed the agency on EDF's other claims. For example, on the second claim, where EDF argued that only the original company claiming a chemical’s identity as CBI, or its successor, could act to preserve CBI status, the opinion concludes “[t]hat is incorrect."
The court finds that TSCA “is silent as to whether a company may maintain an existing claim of confidentiality if it was not the original claimant. . . . Congress thus left that question of implementation to the expertise of the EPA.”
Similarly, the court rejected EDF's claim that the rule’s disclosure procedures unlawfully fail to incorporate TSCA requirements that EPA review claims within 90 days and other provisions.
EDF “cites nothing in the regulation that contradicts those statutory obligations. . . . [N]othing in the Inventory Rule countermands or frustrates those statutory obligations. . . . [EDF] seems to want the statutory requirements duplicated in the rule for duplication’s sake. That is not necessary.”
In its fourth claim, EDF challenges EPA's failure to develop an approach to uniquely identify each chemical identity deemed CBI. The court agrees EPA has not implemented this requirement of TSCA, but concludes that the group may be able to bring a claim on the issue in the future under the APA.
Lastly, the court rejected EDF's objection to EPA's exclusion of export-only chemicals from the Inventory Rule’s requirement that chemical companies notify the EPA of chemical substances being manufactured or processed,” finding the agency interpretation to be “reasonable.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/court-faults-epas-nonsensical-elimination-tsca-rules-cbi-provision
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D.C. Circuit Partially Denies Petition for Review of TSCA Inventory Rule
Apr 27, 2019 | The National Law Review
By Lynn L. Bergeson and Margaret R. Graham
On April 26, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit) issued its order on petition for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements (82 Fed. Reg. 37520 (Aug. 11, 2017)), which denied the petition for review on all but one claim. Petitioner Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) challenged five distinct features of the Inventory final rule: (i) EPA’s exclusion of substantiation questions regarding reverse engineering; (ii) the final rule’s criteria for “maintaining” a confidentiality claim; (iii) EPA’s choice not to incorporate certain regulatory requirements into the final rule; (iv) EPA’s failure to implement the Act’s “unique identifier” requirements in this rulemaking; and (v) the final rule’s exemption of exported chemicals from its notification requirements.
The D.C. Circuit’s order states that only the first claim succeeds past the standard of review required under both the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and TSCA, however; specifically, EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously via its “omission of any inquiry into a chemical identity’s susceptibility to reverse engineering [which] effectively excised a statutorily required criterion from the substantiation process.” Even though EPA included several substantiation questions to address reverse engineering in the proposed rule, EPA did not include any “substantiation questions related to the requirement that a substance’s chemical identity not be susceptible to reverse engineering” and declined altogether to “‘secure answers’ substantiating a company’s ‘assertion’ that its chemical product cannot be reverse engineered.” The court states that this error was “fatal” and remands this issue back to EPA for EPA to “address this arbitrary elimination of substantiation questions regarding reverse engineering.”
Regarding the other four claims that it denied, EPA made the following statements:
“EPA acted well within its discretion in concluding that, as part of the Inventory update, any manufacturer or processor of a chemical substance can file a claim to maintain the chemical substance’s confidentiality”;
“There is nothing facially troubling about the failure to copy every relevant statutory obligation into the regulation”;
“Agencies need not address all regulatory obligations ‘in one fell swoop’ … nothing in [TSCA] requires the EPA to develop and implement the unique identifier system alongside its Inventory review process”; and
“EPA’s decision [to exclude export-only chemicals from the final rule’s requirement that chemical companies notify EPA of chemical substances being manufactured or processed] reflected a reasonable interpretation of [TSCA].”
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/dc-circuit-partially-denies-petition-review-tsca-inventory-rule-holds-reverse
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Rule Sent Back to EPA on Trade Secret Concerns
Apr 26, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
An EPA rule failed to require chemical manufacturers to sufficiently prove that they’ve protected their chemical’s secret identity from discovery through reverse engineering, a federal court ruled April 26.
Nor did the Environmental Protection Agency explain why it eliminated from a final rule (RIN 2070-AK24), all of the questions the agency’s proposed rule had included that pertained to reverse engineering, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said.
Reverse engineering refers to analytical procedures that scientists can use to figure out materials a chemical is made from, how it is manufactured, and how its atoms are arranged.
The court sent the rule back to the EPA without vacating it.
That means the 2017 rule, which established the procedures chemical manufacturers and processors had to use to let the agency know which chemicals they made or used, remains in effect, said Eric P. Gotting, a partner in the Washington office of Keller and Heckman LLP.
Inventory Not AffectedThe agency used the information companies submitted to release earlier this year an official inventory of chemicals active in commerce. That inventory isn’t affected by the court’s decision.
The court upheld all other parts of the EPA’s rule that the Environmental Defense Fund challenged.
“This decision is a significant win for public disclosure and a strong affirmation by the court of the public’s right to know about the chemicals to which we all are or may be exposed,” Robert Stockman, the EDF attorney who argued the case, told Bloomberg Environment.
“EPA will now have to require significantly more evidence from companies before they can conceal the identities of chemicals they make and sell,” Stockman said. “As a result, fewer such claims will be allowed and workers, consumers, and the public will gain access to more information about those chemicals.”
Scrapped All QuestionsJudge Patricia A. Millett said, writing for a three-judge panel, wrote, “The EPA scrapped, among other things, all substantiation questions related to the requirement that a substance’s chemical identity not be susceptible to reverse engineering.”
The omission ran afoul of the Toxic Substances Control Act, she said.
The law required manufacturers to assert and substantiate that they had a “reasonable basis to believe that the information is not readily discoverable through reverse engineering.”
TSCA does not accept at face value a company’s assertion that it has protected its chemical from discovery, Millet wrote.
“Quite the opposite, the statute specifically requires the company to ‘substantiate’ its confidentiality claim,” she said.
EPA ReviewingThe agency is reviewing the court’s decision and will then determine next steps, the agency said by email.
The American Chemistry Council, “is pleased that the D.C. Circuit denied the majority of the challenges in the case, which is a clear sign that EPA’s approach is consistent with the statute and congressional intent,” Allison Starmann, the trade group’s deputy general counsel, said in a statement.
The council is among 14 industry trade groups that intervened in the case supporting the EPA.
The requirement for companies to substantiate their claims that they have taken steps to prevent their chemicals’ discovery through reverse engineering seems appropriate, said Lynn L. Bergeson, managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell PC.
“The requirement is statutory and EPA’s excision exercise was overzealous. Absent a coherent explanation why it did what it did, understandably the court determined EPA crossed the line between reasonable and arbitrary,” Bergeson said.
“The remand is narrow, however, and EPA won a big victory,” Bergeson said.
Next Steps: Two OptionsThe court’s decision essentially gives the EPA two choices, said Herbert Estreicher, who also is a partner in the Washington office of Keller and Heckman.
First, the agency could propose a rule that explains why it didn’t need to ask companies about how they protected their chemicals’ identities from being discovered through reverse engineering, he said.
It also could require companies to demonstrate the actions they’ve taken to protect their chemicals as part of another rule the agency is developing, Estreicher said.
He referred to a rule (RIN 2070-AK21) the EPA proposed April 23 describing the procedures chemical manufacturers would have to follow when they ask the agency to keep the identity of chemicals they make confidential.
If the EPA chooses the second option, which Estreicher said is more likely, the agency will need to publish a supplement to the proposal rule it already issued.
That supplement would propose to include reverse engineering as one of the substantiation questions companies must answer, he said.
Also on the panel were Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland and Judge Harry T. Edwards.
The case is Envtl. Def. Fund v EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 17-1201, 4/26/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-rule-sent-back-to-epa-on-reverse-engineering-concerns
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Senators Seek Broad GAO Probe Of DOD's PFAS Liabilities, Policy Stance
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
The bipartisan leadership of the Senate governmental affairs committee is asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to open a probe into the environmental liabilities facing federal agencies such as the Defense Department (DOD) as they grapple with cleanup of the emerging contaminants per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
They are also calling on GAO to find out if the agencies have sought to minimize their liabilities, and if federal efforts have aided or impeded state actions to clean up PFAS.
The inquiry from Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Gary Peters (D-MI) -- the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee -- asks GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro to launch an examination of the financial liabilities federal agencies face as states, EPA and DOD begin to take actions to address growing concerns over PFAS contamination.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), the environment committee's ranking member who has pressed for more aggressive EPA action on the class of more than 4,000 chemicals, also signed the April 25 letter.
The GAO investigation could yield some answers that have eluded previous inquiries from senators, including Carper, to EPA, DOD and other agencies over discussions agencies have had on emerging PFAS policy out of EPA, including its action plan and a groundwater cleanup guidance
DOD and other federal agencies had challenged EPA's proposed groundwater cleanup recommendations for two PFAS -- causing the document to be tied up in inter-agency negotiations for months as DOD pushed for a cleanup level much less stringent than EPA suggested. The agency released the document April 25, sticking to its proposal of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) as a cleanup level, rather than DOD's suggestions for a much weaker level.
PFAS have been tied to various adverse health effects and are causing heightened public concern over their presence in drinking water supplies around the country.
The senators reference GAO's 2019 “High Risk List,” which called for the federal government to address its environmental liabilities, and say one such liability relates to PFAS, non-stick chemicals that have been used in a variety of consumer and industrial products, including fire-fighting foams used by DOD.
A DOD official earlier this year estimated the department faces about $2 billion in cleanup liability stemming from PFAS contamination -- although it is not clear what cleanup level that figure assumes. The Defense Department has identified 401 closed or active bases with known or suspected PFAS contamination, the letter says.
“It is also estimated that as many as 110 million Americans could have PFAS concentrations of at least 2.5 [ppt] in their drinking water,” the senators write. “A number of federal laws provide the EPA and other agencies with tools to address contaminated drinking water as necessary."
Answers Sought
While EPA recently laid out a plan for taking action on PFAS, the agency has been frequently criticized for what many consider a slow effort to respond to the chemicals and for failing to issue any enforceable requirements to date. Instead, some states where the chemicals have gained significant public attention have started setting their own standards and cleanup levels -- often at levels more stringent than EPA's non-enforceable drinking water advisory number. The letter references EPA's initial efforts and states' request for help from EPA in responding to PFAS contamination around the country.
“As federal entities undertake these cleanup efforts, Congress must ensure that taxpayer dollars are used effectively,” the senators say.
Therefore, they say they are asking GAO to find answers to a number of questions. These include determining the geographic distribution of PFAS in the country; the extent to which federal agencies have responded to known human health and environmental impacts of the chemicals, and challenges agencies have faced in responding; and the estimated cost to the federal government of cleanups, where the federal agency is a drinking water system purveyor.
Further, the letter asks for GAO to determine whether any agencies responsible for cleanup of PFAS have taken actions to minimize their financial liabilities.
It also requests that GAO look into what actions states have taken to address PFAS, how those actions “have informed federal efforts, and how federal efforts have helped or hindered state actions."
In addition, they ask about the “research needs, if any, that exist to understand and address the environmental and health effects of PFAS, as well as disposal methods,” and the progress DOD and others have made in identifying an alternative to using PFAS in firefighting foam.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/senators-seek-broad-gao-probe-dods-pfas-liabilities-policy-stance
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Critics Accuse EPA of Weakening Pollution Rule for Pentagon
Apr 29, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Beitsch
Critics say an Environment Protection Agency (EPA) proposal would weaken the Pentagon's obligation to deal with harmful chemicals that pollute groundwater near military bases.
They say the proposal, released Thursday, is the result of a long military effort to weaken EPA standards on cleaning up chemical pollution.
“If reports are true that the DOD [Department of Defense] pressured the EPA to weaken PFAS cleanup standards, this is wholly unacceptable and is inconsistent with assurances that Acting [Defense] Secretary [Patrick] Shanahan gave me on the Pentagon’s commitment to address PFAS contamination,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) wrote on Twitter. “We cannot afford to take a step backward on addressing PFAS contamination.”ADVERTISEMENT
The fight is over a group of nonstick chemicals typically referred to as PFAS, which are used in everything from Teflon pans and food wrappers to raincoats. But the chemicals are also a key ingredient in firefighting foam, which is used heavily on military bases and leaves the chemicals seeping into groundwater that often supplies the drinking water for nearby communities.
After decades of use, there is growing evidence of the health risk of PFAS. The substance causes various types of cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol and other illnesses. It’s also doesn’t break down easily — studies have found the substance in the blood of 98 percent of people.
Critics say EPA’s proposal, which will now go through a 45-day comment period, does little to address the contamination present at as many as 400 military sites. They say the rules would allow the Pentagon to take years to begin cleaning up PFAS pollution at many sites.
“They don’t compel any meaningful action at the sites already known to be polluted,” Sonya Lunder, senior toxics adviser at the Sierra Club, said in a statement about the proposal.
“There are hundreds of communities contaminated by military activities and industrial emissions, and most have drank contaminated water for decades," Lunder continued. "We do not have the luxury of waiting any longer. We need immediate action to protect women, children and communities most exposed to these dangerous chemicals.”
Democratic senators expressed concern earlier this year that other agencies, including the Pentagon, might try to weaken EPA standards. In March, they wrote to a number of agency heads requesting documents on any “interagency dispute related to how stringent the guidelines should be.”
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), one of the signatories of the letter, said EPA’s proposal “fails to adequately protect public health from this emerging crisis."
"[EPA] Administrator [Andrew] Wheeler himself said that safe drinking water is the greatest environmental challenge facing our world, yet, again, we see that EPA is not addressing this issue in the manner in which it demands, nor with the urgency in which Americans deserve.”
When EPA first considered a potential rule on addressing PFAS contamination, the agency and Pentagon were far apart on what standards to implement.
EPA recommends water have no more than 70 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFAS. The Department of Defense (DOD) had argued they shouldn’t be held responsible for cleanup unless those levels reach a much higher level, 380 ppt.
The difference in those numbers goes beyond the pollution level of water. Raising the threshold for cleanup would cut the number of military sites considered contaminated and save the Pentagon potentially millions on what could be a $2 billion cleanup tab.
Though EPA's proposal would cover a greater number of sites than the military's suggested contamination level, critics say it does not require the immediate cleanup of the sites.
Missing from the proposal is a measure that would have allowed the EPA to take emergency action on its own to clean up sites with more than 400 ppt of PFAS and later bill the government agency or entity responsible for the pollution.
Betsy Southerland, a former director of the EPA’s Office of Science and Technology in the Office of Water, helped develop the 70 ppt recommendation for the agency at the tail end of the Obama administration. She said the removal of the emergency measure is “the worst thing about this guidance.”
One of the biggest concerns, she said, is how long it may take for DOD to take action.
“It can take a long time to clean that up 'cause then it’s not an emergency. You can take your time, do a lot more studies, evaluate all the different possible actions you can take to curtail the pollution," Southerland said.
"So, it can be years until communities get a response from the Department of Defense or a private party,” Southerland continued. “You can just take your sweet time.”
Corry Schiermeyer, an EPA spokeswoman, defended the proposal, calling it a critical tool that marks the first time the agency has taken action to address PFAS contamination of groundwater.
DOD did not respond to questions about the agency’s push for different standards.
"We support the public comment process and look forward to working with EPA to implement the final guidance document," said Heather Babb, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Congress has pressured the Pentagon to address pollution issues, including in the current year’s budget more than $134 million specifically for cleanup. This year, there are at least 13 bills that would require action on PFAS, some directed specifically at the military.
Shaheen had previously asked Shanahan, the Pentagon acting secretary, to confirm reports that the military was pushing EPA to weaken its standards on PFAS. Shanhan denied those reports in an April 10 letter to the senator.
“The department is not seeking a different or weaker cleanup standard,” Shanahan wrote.
For its part, EPA has also come under fire for its own handling of PFAS.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who has sponsored several bills dealing with PFAS, said EPA’s latest proposal “is completely unacceptable and does not do enough to protect public health.”
The agency has long been criticized for moving too slowly in dealing with the chemicals, particularly after states started passing their own drinking water standards for PFAS, often at a level below what the EPA currently says is safe.
Southerland said the 70 ppt recommendation she helped develop in 2016 has languished at the Trump EPA — the agency announced in February it would begin the process of evaluating setting a firm PFAS standard for drinking water.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/440874-critics-accuse-epa-of-weakening-pollution-rule-for-pentagon
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EPA Yet Again Fails to Set Health-Protective Levels for PFAS
Apr 26, 2019 | Natural Resource Defense Council
By Anna Reade
Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft interim recommendations for addressing groundwater contaminated with PFOA and PFOS, just two of a class of approximately 4,700 chemicals of health and environmental concern. It recommended:Screening level (level over which a potential contamination site should be investigated further) of 40 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and PFOS, individuallyPreliminary remediation goal (target for groundwater cleanup) of 70 ppt for PFOA and PFOS combined
These levels are disappointingly high and based on the EPA’s lifetime health advisory for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water set in 2016. According to the EPA, “This guidance is based on EPA’s current scientific understanding of the toxicity of PFOA and PFOS and is consistent with other relevant EPA guidance.” However, several states and federal agencies have since determined that the 2016 health advisory is not health-protective and have proposed stricter standards or guidelines for drinking water and groundwater.
The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released a report in the summer of 2018 which proposed health thresholds for PFOA and PFOS approximately 10 times lower than EPA’s health threshold (reference dose) used to generate its health advisory for drinking water.
More recently, the Michigan PFAS Science Advisory Panel found that a person exposed to 70 ppt of PFOA in their drinking water would have a blood serum level of PFOA in the same range as the blood serum levels where adverse health effects have been observed in human studies, such as the C8 study in West Virginia. Therefore, the Panel concluded that, “the research supports the potential for health effects resulting from long term exposure to drinking water with concentrations below 70 ppt.”
Some states facing PFAS contamination crises, including Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota, are not waiting for the EPA to act. These states are performing more comprehensive monitoring for PFAS and/ or proposing lower drinking water, groundwater or hazardous waste cleanup standards or guidelines:
Equally concerning is the EPA's continued focus on PFOA and PFOS, just two members of this large class of synthetic chemicals, known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).
PFAS chemicals have been used for decades to provide non-stick, stain- and water-resistant properties to products such as carpet, furniture, cookware, and food packaging. They are also used in fire-fighting foams and industrially as surfactants, emulsifiers, and coatings. Although the class is broad, they are related in their extreme persistence and mobility in our environment and potential to cause health harm. They are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t breakdown. They are now found in the blood of virtually all Americans and in the drinking water serving millions of people across the nation. Unfortunately, they have been linked to many harmful health effects, including cancer, immune system disfunction, liver damage, hormone disruption, low birth weight, and reproductive harm, some of which can occur at extremely low doses.
Mounting evidence linking other PFAS chemicals to human health harms, combined with concerns over their similar environmental mobility and persistence and widespread human and environmental exposure, have led independent scientists and other health professionals from around the globe to express concern about the continued and increasing production and release of PFAS (examples include Helsingørstatement, Madrid statement, and journal articles).
The CDC and some states have determined there is enough data to support thresholds for other PFAS, and Vermont and Massachusetts are proposing to regulate multiple PFAS under a combined (or summed) threshold due to their chemical similarity and potential to target the same biological systems.
Based on these impacts and the best available science, NRDC recently has completed a scientific report urging strict, health-protective drinking water and groundwater standards for 5 specific PFAS, and a treatment technique requirement using state of the art treatment for total PFAS. Specifically, NRDC recommends a drinking water and groundwater standard of 2 ppt for PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, and PFNA; a 5 ppt standard for GenX, and a treatment technique for total PFAS of reverse osmosis or the equivalent.
EPA has failed to carry out its duty by proposing groundwater cleanup and screening levels that will not protect the public. NRDC will submit comments based on our recommendations urging the EPA to set protective cleanup standards for our groundwater. We also urge citizens to comment by June 10th, 2019 to EPA and point out that the CDC and numerous states have found that EPA’s 70 ppt cleanup level and 40 ppt screening level for PFOA and PFOS are far too high. EPA’s proposal would leave Americans across the country who live near contaminated sites unprotected from potentially dangerous levels of these toxic forever chemicals.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/epa-yet-again-fails-set-health-protective-levels-pfas
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3M Settles Nonstick Chemical Suit with Alabama Water Utility
Apr 26, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Chris Marr
3M Company struck a deal to settle water contamination claims by an Alabama municipal water utility, allowing the utility to install a multimillion-dollar filtration system without raising customer rates.
The company and utility April 26 jointly announced the settlement of a lawsuit pending in federal court.
The West Morgan-East Lawrence Water and Sewer Authority had blamed 3M and other companies for PFAS contamination in the Tennessee River about 13 miles downstream from their Decatur, Ala., manufacturing facilities.
The announcement didn’t provide a dollar amount for the settlement, and a 3M spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the information in the news release. Attorneys for the water authority didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
One of Many SuitsThe case is one of many brought by water authorities and individuals against 3M and other companies over per- and polyfluorinated (PFAS) chemicals—known for their persistence and uses in nonstick and stain-resistant coatings as well as firefighting foam.
But growing concerns about their health effects as they linger in water supplies and in the human body have prompted an EPA health advisory and a federal action plan that so far has stopped short of setting regulatory limits on their presence in water sources. According to EPA, two members of the PFAS class can promote cancer, hinder development, and harm the liver and immune systems.
A 3M attorney previously said the company stopped making two members of the PFAS class—perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)—more than a decade ago and had been working with EPA on cleaning up its Decatur site since 2006. Those two chemicals are the sources of concern for the West Morgan-East Lawrence water supply.
Water Utilities ActiveAt least two other Alabama water utilities have sued 3M—and carpet companies that use PFAS coatings upstream in Dalton, Ga.—over their alleged roles in discharging chemicals into northeast Alabama’s drinking water supplies.
Because of the 3M settlement, the West Morgan-East Lawrence authority recently canceled its previous plan to increase customers’ monthly bills to pay for a new reverse osmosis filtration system, authority board member Keith Russell told Bloomberg Environment. He declined to comment on the dollar amount.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/3m-settles-nonstick-chemical-lawsuit-with-alabama-water-utility
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Senate Democrats Urge Commercial Ban of Methylene Chloride
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
Democratic leaders in the Senate are urging EPA to ban commercial uses of the paint stripper methylene chloride, saying the Trump administration's decision to limit its ban to consumer uses and merely consider requiring additional training for workers using the chemical leaves a vulnerable population at risk.
“While EPA's decision to ban consumer uses of this chemical is a welcome and overdue step, the decision to exclude commercial uses of the chemical from the ban leaves workers (more than 50 of whom have already been killed due to exposures to this chemical) without the protection they need and the law requires,” the senators say in an April 26 letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
“We urge you to immediately move to finalize a ban that will eliminate the unreasonable risks posed by commercial uses of methylene chloride paint strippers,” the letter continues
Leading the call for EPA action are Sens. Tom Carper (DE), the top democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Tom Udall (NM), the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee with oversight over EPA's budget, and Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (NY), as well as 19 other Democratic senators.
EPA in March banned consumer use of the paint stripper but allowed continued commercial use of the chemical while also issuing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to require additional training and certification for workers using methylene chloride, a likely human carcinogen and acutely lethal chemical.
But the senators say there is already evidence that additional training will not protect workers and they urged EPA to drop the proposal. They note that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cautioned EPA that the OSHA worker protection standards for methylene chloride exposure are more than 20 years old, and that OSHA does not believe that standard is protective enough given the risks to workers that were identified by EPA.
Additionally, in EPA's proposed rule, the agency said requiring a worker training program for the proper use of respirators when using the chemical would be too costly and would likely result in companies voluntarily using alternatives to methylene chloride, the senators say.
“Given the dozens of deaths of workers, among even those who had been properly equipped and trained to protect themselves against methylene chloride exposure, EPA's failure to protect commercial users of methylene chloride in its ban is likely to lead to more illnesses and deaths that are entirely preventable,” the letter says.
The senators' call follows litigation filed by labor advocates and environmental groups asking a federal appeals court to review the consumer ban in attempt to broaden it to include workplace exposures.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/senate-democrats-urge-commercial-ban-methylene-chloride
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Expert Focus: The Impact of the EU's Glyphosate Court Ruling
Apr 29, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Olivia Jamison
On 7 March the General Court of the European Union ruled on two legal challenges concerning an EU body’s refusal to allow access to studies relating to glyphosate.
Whilst relating to the chemical product’s use as a plant protection product, the decision should be of wider interest. It is an important ruling for how all EU institutions should handle access to information requests, the meaning of "emissions to the environment" and a reminder of the balancing interests considered in such requests.
'It may serve as a reminder of the potential breadth of interpretation given to information relating to "emissions to the environment"'
Some may not be surprised by the approach and outcome, but for others it may serve as a reminder of the potential breadth of interpretation given to information relating to "emissions to the environment".
The background to the judgment and the key findings of relevance are set out below.The background
In 2014 and 2017 two separate applications were made to the European Food Safety Agency (Efsa) to gain access to studies relating to the renewal of the active substance glyphosate pursuant to two European Regulations.
Firstly, Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, (the Access to Documents Regulation) and secondly, Regulation (EC) 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community institutions and bodies (the Aarhus Regulation).
Both applications were rejected in part by Efsa and the applicants sought a ruling annulling those decisions.The first application
An individual, Anthony C Tweedale, submitted a request for access to two "key studies" used in order to set glyphosate’s acceptable daily intake (ADI). In refusing the request, Efsa decided that the studies were covered by an exception provided by the Access to Documents Regulation, relating to the protection of commercial interests, including intellectual property rights, and that their full protection was also the direct consequence of their classification as ‘confidential’ under the Aarhus Regulation.
Efsa considered that disclosure of the requested studies would reveal the owners’ know-how relating to scientific expertise and their commercial strategy, including their know-how for the dossier compilation, and would undermine their commercial interests. Efsa decided that the public interest in having access to the scientific information relating to the safety of the active substance was fully satisfied by the publication of the public version of the renewal assessment report (available on the Efsa website).
When asked to reconsider its decision, Efsa stated that the requested studies did not constitute information which ‘relates to emissions into the environment’ for the purposes of the Aarhus Regulation and therefore disclosure did not override commercial interests.
Some time later, in 2017, Efsa adopted a new decision annulling and replacing the earlier decision and granting partial access to the requested studies. Efsa provided the raw data and findings of the requested studies considering that the confidentiality claims by the owners of those studies did not apply to that information.
However, Efsa considered that: (i) parts of the requested studies (ii) information relating to ‘scientific know-how’ and (iii) the annexes and other parts of the requested studies, including the protocols followed, were protected by the exception relating to the protection of commercial interests under the Access to Documents Regulation.
Efsa stated that it had weighed up the interests at stake in accordance with the regulations and had concluded that there was no overriding public interest in disclosure of the requested studies. It considered that information provided satisfied the public’s need to be informed and made it possible to reproduce its assessment, whilst protecting the interests of the owners of the requested reports. Finally, Efsa considered that the parts of the requested studies which were not disclosed did not contain information concerning emissions in the environment, or any information concerning emissions or releases into, or their effect on the environment, and that the presumption of disclosure laid down in the Aarhus Regulation was therefore not applicable.The second application
MEPs requested the studies used by Efsa to assess the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and its representative formulation in their entirety. The renewal of the approval of the active substance glyphosate was conditional on the outcome of the requested studies.
Amongst the disclosure, Efsa provided only partial access to the 12 ‘most crucial’ studies for the peer review and its conclusion that glyphosate is unlikely to pose carcinogenic hazard to humans for largely the same reasons as in the Tweedale case.The rulings
The General Court found that EFSA infringed the Access to Documents Regulation and the Aarhus Regulation by failing to recognise that the requested studies could be classified as information which ‘relates to emissions into the environment’ for the purposes of the latter regulation.
'The application of the exception to disclosure based on the protection of commercial interests must be waived where there is an overriding public interest'
The application of the exception to disclosure based on the protection of commercial interests must be waived where there is an overriding public interest.
Under the Aarhus Regulation, an overriding public interest in disclosure is deemed to exist where the information requested ‘relates to emissions into the environment’.
In arriving at its decisions the following points were noted:The developmental toxicity studies were used to renew the approval of the active substance. On the basis of the requested studies, the effects of exposure to glyphosate on human health were determined. The ADI being ‘the estimate of the amount of substances in food expressed on a body weight basis, that can be ingested daily over a lifetime, without appreciable risk to any consumer on the basis of all known facts at the time of evaluation, taking into account sensitive groups within the population (eg, children and the unborn)’. Further, the no-observed adverse effect levels established made it possible to establish the ‘acute reference dose’ (ARfD), ‘the estimate of the amount of substance in food, expressed on a body weight basis, that can be ingested over a short period of time, usually during one day, without appreciable risk to the consumer on the basis of the data produced by appropriate studies and taking into account sensitive groups within the population (eg, children and the unborn);The objective of the Aarhus Regulation is to ensure access to information concerning factors, such as emissions affecting or likely to affect elements of the environment, in particular air, water and soil. The concept of information which ‘relates to emissions into the environment’ cannot be limited to information concerning emissions actually released into the environment when the plant protection product or active substance in question is used on plants or soil, where those emissions depend, on the quantities of product actually used by farmers and the exact composition of the final product marketed;Although the placing on the market of a product or substance is not sufficient in general for it to be concluded that that product or substance will necessarily be released into the environment and that information concerning the product or substance ‘relates to emissions into the environment’, the situation is different as regards to a product such as a plant protection product, and the substances which that product contains, which, in the course of normal use, are intended to be released into the environment by virtue of their very function. In that case, foreseeable emissions, under normal or realistic conditions of use, from the product in question or from the substances which that product contains, into the environment are not hypothetical and are covered by the concept of ‘emissions into the environment’;Information which ‘relates to emissions into the environment’ is not limited to information which makes it possible to assess the emissions as such, namely information concerning the nature, composition, quantity, date and place of those emissions, but also data concerning the medium to long-term consequences of those emissions on the environment;Information which ‘relates to emissions into the environment’ is not limited to information which makes it possible to assess the emissions as such namely information concerning the nature, composition, quantity, date and place of those emissions, but also data concerning the medium to long-term consequences of those emissions on the environment; andFor the studies to be classified as information which ‘relates to emissions into the environment’ for the purposes of the Aarhus Regulation, what matters is not so much the conditions in which those studies were carried out, in particular whether or not they were carried out in a laboratory, but their purpose.The implications
The General Court held that the public interest in accessing information on emissions into the environment is specifically to know not only what is, or foreseeably will be, released into the environment, but also to understand the way in which the environment could be affected by the emissions in question.
The General Court’s rejection of Efsa’s tightly drawn definition of "emissions into the environment" and interpretation of it to include data concerning the medium to long-term consequences of those emissions on the environment will give future applications for access to information greater leverage and result in increased disclosure of supporting studies.
https://chemicalwatch.com/76719/expert-focus-the-impact-of-the-eus-glyphosate-court-ruling
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House Committee to Target Trump Energy Policies
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Scott Streater
Democrats are expected to push for more renewable energy development on federal lands during a House Natural Resources oversight hearing tomorrow where the Trump administration's energy policies are expected to take center stage.
The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources hearing will focus on "the need to transition to clean energy development on public lands rather than remaining focused on fossil fuel extraction," according to a press advisory from the Democratic majority staff.
It follows a subcommittee hearing last month during which subcommittee Chairman Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) openly mocked the Trump administration's "single-minded" focus on fossil fuels. Fellow California Rep. Mike Levin (D) also urged the administration and Congress "to do more to spur responsible development of clean energy on public lands" (E&E Daily, March 13).
Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, the subcommittee's ranking Republican, and other GOP members have staunchly defended the administration's efforts.
The subcommittee hearing highlighted the deep partisan divide regarding the Trump administration's quest for "energy dominance" through increased oil and gas drilling and mining activity on federal lands.
Expect similar fireworks at tomorrow's hearing, which will include testimony from Michael Gerrard, an environmental law scholar at Columbia University.
Gerrard, along with fellow environmental law scholar John Dernbach at Widener University, recently released an exhaustive playbook designed to help policymakers and lawyers devise strategies to cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions (Climatewire, April 24). Oil and gas drilling operations are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
During a recent interview with E&E News, Gerrard said some of the policy recommendations for EPA and other government agencies included in the book are "not likely" to be approved "during the current administration."
At the subcommittee hearing last month, Levin and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) grilled Mike Nedd, the Bureau of Land Management's deputy director of operations, on the change of direction on energy policy under President Trump.
Nedd acknowledged to the subcommittee that only two solar power projects have been approved by BLM in the last two years, with no wind or geothermal project approvals.
By contrast, BLM during the Obama administration approved 60 solar, wind and geothermal projects that would have a total capacity to produce about 15,500 megawatts of electricity — enough to power more than 5 million homes and businesses on an annual basis.
Levin lamented to Nedd that "all the good work that you did under the Obama administration with significant new solar, wind and other clean sources of power now is under direct threat" by the Trump administration's ambivalence toward renewables.
During that hearing, Gosar ripped Obama-era regulatory policies that he said "significantly hampered oil production." Thanks to President Trump, "We are truly experiencing an energy renaissance in this country."
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, April 30, at 10 a.m. in 1334 Longworth.
Witnesses:Lyle Jack, chairman, Oceti Sakowin Power Authority.Erica Brand, director of California energy strategy, the Nature Conservancy.Michael Gerrard, Andrew Sabin professor of professional practice, Columbia Law School.Jim Lamon, CEO, DEPCOM Power.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/04/29/stories/1060235935
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Courts Derail Trump's March to 'Energy Dominance'
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King
Bit by bit, federal judges across the country have begun to chip away at the foundation of the Trump administration's energy agenda.
A crop of recent district court rulings rebuffed President Trump's efforts to amp up energy development on public lands and waters: the end of a coal leasing ban, the repeal of a key royalties regulation, the reversal of an offshore moratorium and the leasing of large Western tracts for oil and gas development.
All the decisions knock down or delay elements of the Trump administration's "energy dominance" agenda — a directive largely shouldered by the Interior Department, which manages federal and tribal lands.
"The administration clearly wants to hitch its wagon to the fossil fuels industry, but so many of our environmental laws and decades' worth of precedent make it clear that agencies have to analyze and account for environmental effects," said Jayni Hein, natural resources director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University.
"Even if the administration as a whole wants to shift away from climate analysis, it really can't."
In each of the recent rulings, many of which came down on Friday nights, judges found that the Trump administration had fallen short of its requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act or Administrative Procedure Act.
One case, in which an Alaska court reinstated Obama-era oil and gas leasing bans in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, offered an unusual direct rebuke of an exercise of executive power.Pending Interior energy cases
In addition to possible appeals over the recent round of leasing, offshore, regulatory and coal decisions, the Interior Department still faces upcoming legal action on the following energy issues:
Revised BLM Methane and Waste Prevention Rule: Get ready for a long round of legal wrangling over the Trump administration's revision to Obama-era controls on methane emissions from existing oil and gas operations on public and tribal lands (Energywire, Sept. 19, 2018). Although the rewrite effectively rescinds the 2016 regulation, the approach may escape some of the legal pitfalls of an outright repeal, which BLM tried with the valuation and fracking rules.
BLM hydraulic fracturing rule repeal: As with the Obama-era valuation rule, BLM called for an outright rescission of a 2015 regulation affecting fracking operations on federal and tribal lands. The case now sits in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California after government and industry lawyers lost their battle last summer to transfer the dispute to Wyoming, where they had hoped to land a more sympathetic judge (Energywire, July 18, 2018).
Sage grouse plans: Environmental groups have raised objections to sage grouse plan revisions made by both the Obama and Trump administrations. Earlier this month, challengers asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho to block President Trump's Interior from implementing changes to Obama-era grouse plans that they say would expose the iconic bird to impacts from oil and gas development and other land uses (Greenwire, April 22).
National monuments: U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska Judge Sharon Gleason's offshore ruling may carry repercussions beyond the Trump administration's "energy dominance" agenda. Her finding that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act allows only Congress to reverse Obama's offshore protections could reverberate in lawsuits involving Trump's efforts to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah (Greenwire, April 2).
— Pamela King
Newly confirmed Interior Secretary David Bernhardt last week announced that the ruling had indefinitely paused the department's plans to expand offshore oil and gas production (E&E News PM, April 25).
The bevy of rulings, issued by district courts from Alaska to the District of Columbia, have dismayed industry groups that saw President Trump's election as a key to unlock access to federal oil, gas and coal. Some have been quick to blame the judicial branch.
"There's definitely an issue of activist judges trying to go for policy outcomes," Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said.
The oil and gas trade group is an intervenor in one of the leasing cases, in which a D.C. court called on Interior's Bureau of Land Management to conduct additional NEPA analysis (Energywire, March 20).
The Western Energy Alliance also has a hand in defending Interior's energy policies in several pending challenges (see sidebar).
It's unclear whether Interior will appeal any of the recent rulings, but Sgamma and other industry advocates will be pressing for circuit court challenges.
"A lot of these rulings need to be appealed, and Interior and the Justice Department are just passive," she said. "These decisions are bad precedent. They're contrary to law."
Interior does not comment on pending litigation.
If the Trump administration escalates the disputes, many of the cases would land in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
President Trump has openly criticized the West Coast appellate court for striking down many of his administration's policies.
Environmental challengers said they were encouraged to see courts backing green groups' cries that the government's energy push flouts federal law.
"I don't see a path to success," said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians, which is party to several lawsuits challenging Interior energy policies.
"Their agenda is dead on arrival."
Here's a look at what's next in each of the recent court rulings on Interior's energy policies:Western leasing
What's next: BLM could quickly turn around climate reviews, as it did in one case. If the courts strike those down, the government could appeal.
Jurisdiction for potential appeals: D.C. Circuit and 10th Circuit
A pair of federal judges last month ordered BLM to try again on climate analyses for oil and gas leasing decisions in Wyoming and Colorado.
BLM made quick work of its NEPA review in Wyoming, handing back a supplemental environmental assessment less than one month after Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued his ruling.
Environmental challengers used their 10-day comment period to draft a scathing reply.
"With its rushed Supplemental EA, the agency has not stepped back to take the hard look demanded by NEPA in order to ensure a reasoned and informed decision," WildEarth Guardians and other groups wrote in a comment last week.
"Instead, BLM treats the Court's decision and NEPA itself as a meaningless paper exercise."
BLM could request voluntary remand of its environmental reviews supporting leases in Colorado and Utah, which were also included in the Wyoming challenge but were broken into separate litigating schedules, said Nichols of WildEarth Guardians.
U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado Senior Judge Lewis Babcock, a Reagan pick, last month also ordered a more robust climate analysis for leases in the Centennial State's treasured North Fork Valley (Energywire, March 28).
The parties are still weighing next steps in that case.Reversing offshore withdrawals
What's next: In light of an Alaska court's ruling on Arctic and Atlantic waters, Interior officials last week pumped the brakes on their efforts to expand offshore oil and gas leasing. An appeal is still possible.
Jurisdiction for potential appeals: 9th Circuit
A federal judge in Alaska dashed the Trump administration's hopes of developing energy in previously closed offshore tracts.
Trump did not have the authority to reopen Alaskan seas and Atlantic canyon areas after President Obama prohibited leasing in those regions, Sharon Gleason, an Obama appointee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, ruled last month (Energywire, April 1).
Her ruling has also stifled — for now — plans to open more than 90 percent of federal waters to oil and gas leasing. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's unveiling of an updated five-year plan for offshore development, followed by attempts to excuse Florida from the proposal, whipped up bipartisan backlash along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Bernhardt, Zinke's former No. 2, yesterday iced the five-year plan until the department can fully assess the implications of Gleason's decision.
The new secretary's announcement could also disrupt a separate lawsuit over a set of permits to test the Atlantic Ocean's potential for oil and gas development (Greenwire, Dec. 11, 2018).Valuation rule repeal
What's next: Interior has said it will propose a replacement rule. The department could also launch an appeal.
Jurisdiction for potential appeals: 9th Circuit
With the stroke of a pen, a federal judge in California this month reinstated long-dormant Obama-era requirements for valuing fossil fuels produced on public lands.
Senior Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong, a George W. Bush appointee on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, found Trump's Interior had not offered a "reasoned explanation" for repealing the 2016 rule (Energywire, April 15).
Department officials have said they could offer a proposed replacement regulation later this year. The rule affects what royalties companies pay on federal fossil fuels they extract.
Plans for a fresh regulation have puzzled regulatory experts who say the Obama program, which blocked mining companies from selling coal to affiliates at artificially low prices, was the result of long discussions between government, industry and environmentalists.
"I'm not sure what the replacement rule would be," said Hein of NYU's Institute for Policy Integrity.Lifting the coal leasing moratorium
What's next: A Montana court instructed BLM to prepare some form of NEPA review. Once the court determines the appropriate remedy, Interior could file an appeal.
Jurisdiction for potential appeals: 9th Circuit
The Trump administration must work up a NEPA analysis for its decision to thaw a freeze on federal coal leasing, a Montana district court ruled this month.
Zinke's move to reverse the previous administration's coal moratorium constituted a "major federal action" subject to NEPA review, said Judge Brian Morris, an Obama appointee on the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana (Energywire, April 22).
Morris is the same judge who last year blocked construction on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a key project in Trump's energy plan.
When Zinke ended the leasing moratorium, coal companies had applied to lease about 2.8 billion tons of federal coal.
That total now stands at about 1.8 billion tons, and BLM has listed many recently leased minerals as exempt from the ban (Energywire, April 23).
Coal industry groups called for consistency in federal planning.
"Companies begin planning mining investments 10 years out and need to have leases laid out well in advance," said Conor Bernstein, a spokesman for the National Mining Association.
"Certainty is particularly important for this planning horizon."
Parties in the lawsuit will soon make their arguments for appropriate next steps on the NEPA review.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/04/29/stories/1060234511
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EPA Decides Not to Regulate Fracking Wastewater as Pennsylvania Study Reveals Recent Spike
Apr 27, 2019 | Truthout
By Sharon Kelly
On April 23, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told two environmental groups that it had decided it was “not necessary” to update the federal standards handling toxic waste from oil and gas wells, including the waste produced by fracking.
State regulators have repeatedly proved unable to prevent the industry’s toxic waste from entering America’s drinking water supplies, including both private wells and the rivers from which public drinking water supplies are drawn, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a 2017 national study.
The corrosive salt-laden wastewater from fracked wells has been spread on roads as a de-icer. It’s been sprayed into the air in the hopes of evaporating the water — a practice that spreads its blend of volatile chemicals into the air instead. Oil industry wastewater has even been used to irrigate crops — in California, where state regulators haven’t set rules to keep dangerous chemicals like the carcinogen benzene out of irrigation water.
If equally contaminated waste came from other industries, it would usually be designated hazardous waste and subject to strict tracking and disposal rules designed to keep the public safe from industrial pollution. But in July 1988, after burying clear warnings from its own scientists about the hazards of oilfield waste, the EPA offered the oil and gas industry a broad exemption from hazardous waste handling laws.
The EPA‘s decision this week echoes that.
“Rather than acting in the best interest of the public, EPA has continually shirked its duties and left our communities’ health, drinking water, and environment at risk,” said Adam Kron, senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, one of the two groups that had asked the agency to consider its stance towards the waste. “EPA has known since 1988 that its rules for oil and gas wastes aren’t up to par.”
In the meantime, regulation has been left to the states — and the rules can vary widely.Toxic Waste and Cancer in Pennsylvania
The decision comes as a new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Science of the Total Environment, calls attention to the oil and gas waste produced in Pennsylvania for nearly that entire time.
The oil and gas industry has flooded Pennsylvania with over 380 million barrels of liquid waste from 1991 to 2017, that study found — enough to fill an area the size of a standard city block with a column of wastewater over 200 feet tall.
And that flood has been picking up pace. One out of every seven of those gallons was produced in 2017 alone.
A full 80 percent of the waste produced by the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania stayed in Pennsylvania — or at least that’s as far as the Commonwealth’s reporting system tracked it.
“Pennsylvania also has the third highest cancer incidence rate of all U.S.states,” Environmental Health News reported, citing data from theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. “Approximately half of all Pennsylvanians will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime, and about one in five Pennsylvanians will die of cancer.”
Fifty-five known chemicals that fracked oil and gas operations release into the air and the water can cause cancer, a Yale Public Health analysisfound last year. Oil and gas workers are routinely exposed to dangerous levels of cancer-causing chemicals like benzene, a 2014 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found.
Fracking has also been linked to asthma, low birth weights, and other health problems. “Our examination of the peer-reviewed medical and public health literature uncovered no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health,” a 266-page report by Concerned Health Professionals of New York and Physicians for Social Responsibility found in 2018.Toxic and Radioactive
While many researchers have focused on just the waste from fracked shale wells (considered “unconventional” oil and gas), the new study looks at the wastewater from conventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania as well. The waste from both Marcellus shale wells and “conventional” wells can carry a wide range of pollutants and carcinogens.
“Radium is brought up with oil and gas wastewater for both conventional and unconventional oil and gas production,” explained Lee Ann L. Hill, who is lead author of the report and with the research and policy institute PSE (Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers) Healthy Energy.
Radioactive materials — for example, the radium isotopes associated with drilling — have been found in the sediments downstream from treatment plants, which are often ill-equipped to handle the blend of corrosive salts, trade-secret chemicals, and radioactive elements produced by the state’s oil and gas industry.
“7.6 percent of the wastewater over the whole study period, 1991 to 2017, was discharged to surface water,” Hill, an Environmental Health Program Associate, added. “That ended up being 30 million barrels.”Tracking Toxic Waste — to Its First Stop
In the absence of federal hazardous waste rules, which require stop-by-stop tracking of dangerous toxic waste, states are left to craft their own requirements for the drilling industry — and left to enforce them.
Pennsylvania is one of the only places that requires drillers to file details about their solid and liquid waste to a centralized public reporting system — offering independent researchers a chance to understand how much waste drillers produced and where it all went — or at least where drillers told the state about their waste.
But the data is still incomplete, and not just because it’s self-reported.
The Commonwealth requires drillers to report how much waste they produce and where it is shipped for disposal — but drillers are allowed to list temporary holding facilities — like wastewater “impoundments” or pits — in their reporting, without filing an update to show where the waste ultimately went.
“In addition, a third of the liquid waste across all years in the inventory lack a reported final destination,” the study concludes.
It’s a problem that appears to be getting worse in recent years. In 2017, 41 percent of the wastewater that drillers told Pennsylvania they produced wasn’t tracked all the way through to disposal, researchers said.
And while drillers reported sites in Pennsylvania as the first stop for 80 percent of the waste, a significant amount has found its way into neighboring states like New York and Ohio, the study found.
Over 650,000 tons of solid waste from Pennsylvania’s drilling industry was hauled into New York state from 2010 to 2017, the researchers found, including about 20,000 tons in 2017.
Roughly 31 million barrels of liquid waste was shipped directly out-of-state during that time, the report found, with Ohio taking 29.3 million barrels and West Virginia receiving 1.44 million barrels of wastewater from Pennsylvania.
“It really brings to light that there is definitely inter-state involvement when you talk about oil and gas activities,” said Hill. “It’s not just isolated to one state — neighboring states are tied together when dealing with waste management.”
But at least for the moment, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has decided not to step in, at least not where hazardous waste laws are concerned.
Representatives from civic groups who had asked the EPA to regulate responded in a statement.
“Disposal of waste from oil and gas operations is one of the biggest challenges the industry faces,” Barbara Jarmoska, board member of the Responsible Drilling Alliance, said in a statement responding to the announcement. “Failure to update rules for the disposal and handling of dangerous oil and gas wastes is an egregious dereliction of duty and an intolerable threat to the health and safety of American citizens.”
https://truthout.org/articles/epa-decides-not-to-regulate-fracking-wastewater-as-study-shows-spike/
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BLM Asks Court to Dismiss Montana Oil, Gas Lease Case
Apr 26, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
Three weeks after voluntarily dropping its opposition to reinstating two oil and gas leases in northwestern Montana, the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has asked a federal appeals court to dismiss a case for lack of jurisdiction.
BLM earlier this month voluntarily dropped its appeal of a federal district court's decision to reinstate the leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. In a motion filed Wednesday, BLM argued that the case shouldn't be allowed to continue solely on an appeal by tribes still opposed to the leases, including the Pikuni Traditionalist Association.
"Interior is not pursuing an appeal in this case, and the court does not have jurisdiction to review the district court's decision on an appeal by the intervenors alone," BLM said. "Accordingly, the intervenors' appeal should be dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction."
At issue are leases the BLM awarded in 1982, which were suspended during three rounds of administrative appeals and a subsequent lawsuit by environmental groups and the Blackfeet Nation. Court records show that after 1997, Congress withdrew the area from new oil and gas leasing and all but two of the leases were relinquished.
BLM cancelled the final two leases during the waning days of the Obama administration. Texas oilman W.A. "Tex" Moncrief, owner of one of the leases, sued the agency in April 2017. A federal district court in Montana last September ruled in favor of Moncrief and Solenex LLC, the holder of the other lease. BLM had appealed those rulings.
The appellate court earlier this month granted a motion by Moncrief to modify the briefing schedule for the case, Moncrief v. Department of Interior et al, No. 18-05340. Assuming the case is not dismissed, Moncrief faces a June 5 deadline to submit briefs with final briefs due on July 26.
There was also action Wednesday in the other appellate case involving the leases, Solenex LLC v. David Bernhardt et al, No. 18-5345. Solenex asked the court for a 30-day extension to file response briefs, which if granted would push the deadline to June 5.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/118180-blm-asks-court-to-dismiss-montana-oil-gas-lease-case
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NextDecade's $15B LNG Project Hits Key Permitting Milestone
Apr 26, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Marissa Luck
Federal regulators have released a key environmental study of NextDecade's proposed Rio Grande LNG project – an important milestone in permitting for the 27 million metric ton liquefied natural gas terminal in Brownsville, the third of three LNG projects proposed for Rio Grande Valley.
Officials at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions said Rio Grande LNG, combined with other projects proposed in the area, could cause adverse environmental impacts but that many of those significant impacts could be reduced through a mitigation plan.
Like other projects in Brownsville, federal regulators again expressed concern about how the LNG project would impact habitat for endangered wildcat species, the ocelot and the coastal Gulf Coast jaguarundi. Those conclusions come on top of another report released earlier this week about how the three proposed terminals together – Rio Grande LNG, Annova LNG and Texas LNG – could permanently cut off a wildlife corridor considered critical for the survival of the endangered cats.
The Rio Grande LNG terminal would include six liquefaction plants known as trains, four 180,000 cubic meter storage tanks, multiple storage and refrigeration units, compressor stations, marine loading facilities and truck loading terminals. The terminal would be fed by twin 42-inch pipelines with a total capacity of 4.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. The Rio Bravo Pipeline project would transport gas about 137 miles from Agua Dulce area to the Brownsville terminal.
The $15 billion project would generate an estimated 6,000 construction jobs and about 5,000 permanent jobs mostly within Cameron County, according to company.
"We appreciate the FERC staff's timely and thorough review of our project," said Matt Schatzman, NextDecade's President and Chief Executive Officer in a statement. "The Final Environmental Impact Statement is a culmination of several years of analysis and cooperation with FERC staff and multiple federal, state, and local agencies and other stakeholders."
NextDecade said it expects to receive final authorization on its project by July 25. It plans to make a final investment decision on the project by the end of the third quarter this year.
The LNG developer has hit several key project milestones in recent months. Earlier this week NextDecade entered an agreement with the Port of Brownsville to deepen nearly half the Brownsville Ship Channel by about 10 feet to ease transportation for its project. It also secured a state permit, signed a 20-year supply deal with Royal Dutch Shell and inked a long-term lease and an electricity deal for the 984-acre site.
But NextDecade and the other two proposed LNG projects in Brownsville face stiff opposition from the local community and environmentalists.
Opponents blasted FERC for attempting to downplay the significance of the cumulative impacts of the project, which would be a major emitter of greenhouse gas.
"For years, South Texans have made it clear that we oppose Rio Grande LNG, the Rio Bravo Pipeline, and the other dangerous, unnecessary fracked gas projects proposed for our community. Our cities have passed anti-LNG resolutions, our school board has rejected a proposed tax cut for the project, and time after time we submit public comments and turn out to public hearings to send a clear message that this project would be all cost for our communities while fossil fuel executives reap all the benefit," said Sierra Club Brownsville Organizer Rebekah Hinojosa.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/NextDecade-s-15B-LNG-project-hits-key-permitting-13798764.php?cmpid=ffcp
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Perry Heads Back to Europe to Promote Exports
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Jeremy Dillon
Trump administration officials, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, will travel to Belgium later this week as part of a first-of-its-kind business-to-business summit meant to promote U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas.
The meeting, put on by the United States in conjunction with the European Union, will offer another pulpit for Trump officials to herald the virtues of U.S. LNG export capabilities to energy-hungry European countries heavily reliant on Russian gas.
The invitation-only event also comes as the federal government readies the next wave of export terminals that will further bolster the U.S. natural gas international presence; it currently ranks as the world's third-largest provider behind Australia and Qatar.
"This event follows on President Trump and E.U. Commission President [Jean-Claude] Juncker's agreement last July to expand U.S. LNG exports to Europe, build more European terminals to import liquid natural gas and continue to strengthen our strategic cooperation in the energy space," said Kelly Love, a DOE principal deputy press secretary.
"Secretary Perry will continue these discussions in Brussels to promote a secure, diverse and reliable energy supply in Europe," she added.
In addition to every major natural gas company, Perry will give a keynote address Thursday along with Dominique Ristori, the European Union's director-general for energy. DOE Undersecretary Mark Menezes and Office of Fossil Energy Assistant Secretary Steve Winberg will also make appearances.
Dubbed the "first U.S.-E.U. Energy Council high-level business forum," the proceedings in Brussels come as Belgium becomes the 35th company accepting U.S. LNG exports.
According to the U.S.-E.U. Energy Council website promoting the forum, the meeting "is designed as a ministerial-level event to bring together U.S. and European decision-makers from government as well as companies in the LNG sector."
The Trump administration has been been a vocal advocate for increased LNG exports to Europe, casing overseas sales as a diplomatic tool meant to undercut Russian aggression.
Trump has repeatedly pressed European countries like Germany to abandon support for the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, arguing that further reliance on Russian gas could expose the countries to security concerns.
The exports have the added benefit of helping to reduce the trade exchange with Europe — another Trump priority.
"The administration has done a nice job of talking about this, but the story, especially as it pertains to the competition between Russian gas and U.S. LNG, is oftentimes, as most things are, a little bit more nuanced than people traditionally recognize," said Dustin Meyer, a policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute.
"This event is a really good opportunity to discuss that and highlight the attributes of U.S. LNG as it compares to other supply sources," he added.
And Trump officials will have a more positive message to deliver to European counterparts after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over the past two months has approved three export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico (Greenwire, April 19).
Those approvals are likely to provide needed signal boosts to European countries about the country's ability to ship out the supply, and FERC has an additional nine pending project permits under review in a sign of the potential for more capacity to come online.
Increased exports could also provide some domestic aid, said the American Gas Association's new president, Karen Harbert, in a recent interview with E&E News.
AGA's member companies tend to represent more of the distribution part of the natural gas supply chain, but more exports mean more domestic production, in Harbert's view.
"We are producing so much that we need to find a release valve for the natural gas that we are producing," Harbert said. "And if we are not able to export it, then people won't be producing as much because it has to be economical."
"This is a relief valve for our members of being able to sell the product and keeping it affordable," she added.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/04/29/stories/1060224485
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Husky Refinery Explosion in Wis. Prompts Recommendation to Review Use of Hydrogen Fluoride
Apr 26, 2019 | Minneapolis Star Tribune
By Mike Hughlett
Prompted by the Husky refinery explosion in Superior, Wis., federal chemical safety investigators are advocating a review of the oil refining industry's use of hydrogen fluoride, a highly toxic chemical.
The fiery accident a year ago this week led to an evacuation of large parts of Superior, as public-safety officials feared a release of hydrogen fluoride. In the end, storage tanks full of the chemical were never breached.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board this week said it "strongly encourages" the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review whether refineries' risk-management plans are sufficient to prevent "catastrophic releases" of hydrogen fluoride.
The letter also asks the EPA to determine if there are "commercially viable" alternatives to using hydrofluoric acid in the oil refining process. The Chemical Safety Board essentially wants the EPA to review and update the agency's 1993 study on the hazards of hydrogen fluoride, which was done at the behest of Congress.
Accidents involving hydrogen fluoride are rare. But the chemical can cause severe burns and, in a worst-case scenario, create a deadly gas cloud.
Hydrofluoric acid, which is hydrogen fluoride dissolved in water, is used as a catalyst to boost octane in gasoline at about half of the nation's refineries. The other half use sulfuric acid for the same purpose — which poses its own hazards but doesn't vaporize as fast hydrofluoric acid.
Marathon Petroleum's refinery in St. Paul Park uses hydrofluoric acid; Flint Hills Resources' oil refinery in Rosemount uses sulfuric acid.
The Chemical Safety Board's request to the EPA came after its investigations of the conflagration at Husky Energy's refinery and a 2015 explosion at the former Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance, Calif.
"In the course of our investigations … we have become aware of community concerns about the use of hydrofluoric acid at these refineries and the adequacy of their risk management programs to protect against the release of this hazardous substance," the Chemical Safety Board wrote to the EPA.
The EPA said it is reviewing the letter.
The Chemical Safety Board is an independent agency that investigates chemical accidents and makes recommendations to companies and regulatory agencies, including the EPA.
The 2015 explosion at the Torrance refinery spewed debris that nearly hit two tanks containing modified hydrofluoric acid, the Chemical Safety Board concluded. At the Superior refinery, which Calgary, Alberta-based Husky Energy bought in 2017, an explosion hurled shrapnel into a tank containing asphalt, which leaked and ignited.
The Superior refinery's hydrofluoric acid tank was closer to the explosion point than its asphalt tank, the Chemical Safety Board found.
Husky Energy announced early this month that it will spend more than $400 million to rebuild the refinery, but it declined to stop using hydrogen fluoride. The company said it's not commercially viable to switch from hydrofluoric acid to sulfuric acid or any new octane-boosting technologies.
http://www.startribune.com/husky-refinery-explosion-in-wis-prompts-recommendation-to-review-use-of-hydrogen-fluoride/509131282/
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(ACC Mentioned) Growth Prospects Soar for Eagle Transport
Apr 29, 2019 | Rocky Mount Telegram
By Lawrence Bivins
The Rocky Mount-headquartered company, Eagle Transport Corp., is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary.
And while proud of its humble roots, Eagle Transport is confidently eyeing the future with ambitious growth in mind.
The company long ago made its name supplying gasoline to service stations and convenience stores. Its drivers serve thousands of retail sites across the eastern U.S. through Eagle’s 23 fueling terminals.
“We’re the largest privately-owned petroleum carrier in the country,” says Herb Evans, the company’s vice chairman.
More recently, it has become a leader in hauling chemicals on behalf of customers like Dupont and BASF. While the company is confident in petroleum fuels’ use by motorists well into the future, demand for Eagle’s chemical transportation services is surging. “We’re growing the chemical segment by double digits,” Evans says.
Eagle’s founder, Don Stallings, started the company in 1969 with four trucks. A football standout at UNC and later for the NFL’s Washington Redskins, Stallings launched the company after spending a few years as a driver for his family’s coal and ice business. Today, Eagle Transport maintains a workforce of 1,100 — about 50 of whom work from the company’s Rocky Mount offices. The firm does about $140 million in annual sales, according to Lance Collette, Eagle’s president since 2015.
The company has a sterling safety record. The American Chemistry Council, for example, recently named Eagle Transport “Responsible Care Partner of the Year.”
“That means we’re meeting the strictest guidelines for safety, environmental handling and security,” Collette says.
The focus on operations has also enables Eagle Transport to maintain its strong reputation for quality customer service. The company’s size and scope are at a sweet spot. “We’re large enough to serve everybody, but still small enough to care,” Collette adds, paraphrasing a company slogan.
A shortage of drivers is among the challenges Eagle is working to address. A 2017 report by the American Trucking Association estimated a national shortage of 50,000 drivers.
“We’re absolutely feeling it,” Collette says.
Eagle Transport responded to the challenge by advocating for a two-year degree curriculum in trucking operations management. The program is now offered at Edgecombe Community College and is producing graduates. Collette is encouraged by the talent he sees coming out of ECC and also the fact that millennial-age workers are selecting trucking as a career choice.
“Young people are investing in our industry,” he says.
Evans and Collette are similarly optimistic about Rocky Mount’s larger economic future. The CSX Carolina Connector will energize the region’s manufacturing and logistics sectors, while Rocky Mount Mills brings a unique new dynamic to the Twin Counties’ appeal as a place to live and work. The mills is a required stop when Eagle is entertaining customers and potential new-hires.
“I feel really good about what is going on now,” Evans says. “Things are on the uptick.”
As Eagle Transport continues its own growth trajectory, it is likely to remain loyal to its Rocky Mount roots.
“Our company’s history is here,” Evans says. “We were founded here, and our plans moving forward have us staying here.”
http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/Business/2019/04/29/Growth-prospects-soar-for-Eagle-Transport.html
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Panel Schedules Hearing in Shadow of White House Meeting
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee lawmakers will explore infrastructure this week after a high-profile White House meeting on the subject.
A hearing Thursday will focus on oversight of federal infrastructure permitting and the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.
Republican members of the panel are likely to call for speeding up the permitting process for large projects, a common conservative refrain.
The hearing will come two days after President Trump is scheduled to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) about progress on infrastructure legislation (Greenwire, April 25).
"As a key part of our For The People agenda, on Tuesday, Senator Schumer, other leaders and I will meet with President Trump to advance bipartisan action on a bold infrastructure bill to create jobs and grow our economy in a green and modern way," Pelosi said in a "Dear Colleague" letter released Friday afternoon.
A broad infrastructure bill remains a top priority for both the Trump administration and Democratic leadership, despite rampant disagreement over how to pay for it.
One funding option under consideration is raising the federal gas tax, which hasn't been increased since 1993. Schumer and Pelosi could urge Trump tomorrow to publicly endorse a gas tax hike, which would provide political cover for Republicans hesitant to back the idea.
White House staffers are also concerned that Pelosi could use the meeting to press Trump on impeachment and subpoenas following special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Separately this week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will hold a hearing to hear from lawmakers about their priorities.
Schedule: The House hearing is Wednesday, May 1, at 10 a.m. in 2167 Rayburn.
Witnesses: TBA.
Schedule: The Senate hearing is Thursday, May 2, at 10 a.m. in 342 Dirksen.
Witnesses: TBA.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/04/29/stories/1060224515
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EPA Approval Of Texas ‘Affirmative Defense’ Hints At National Policy Shift
Apr 26, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA is proposing to approve Texas’ plan to offer an “affirmative defense” shielding companies from certain Clean Air Act enforcement actions when air law violations are due to unplanned events, suggesting a possible shift in national policy from the Obama administration’s general prohibition on states being able to offer the waiver.
In a proposal slated for publication in the April 29 Federal Register, the Trump administration splits from the Obama-era position that a federal appeals court ruling barring use of the defense in federal air policies also applies to states’ plans for complying with the Clean Air Act. EPA is now arguing that the court ruling does not apply to state implementation plans (SIPs), clearing the path for Texas and others to reinstate the defense.
EPA Region 6 is proposing to rescind its prior finding that Texas’ SIP was inadequate because it included affirmative defense provisions, which in turn would scrap an Obama-era mandate to revise the plan and remove the provisions. While the decision would only apply in Texas, it would conceivably set precedent for the other Region 6 states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico, and potentially nationwide.
Affirmative defense allows companies to evade enforcement action for air emissions exceeding regulatory limits if the emissions occur during “upset” events, which in Texas include malfunctions and related startups and shutdowns.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued rulings that found blanket exemptions for periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM) unlawful, including affirmative defense. The Obama EPA said the rulings barred the defense not only in federal Clean Air Act rules, but also in SIPs. It issued a rule known as a “SIP Call” forcing states that offered the defense to remove those provisions from their SIPs.
Texas was one of the affected states, and petitioned EPA for reconsideration of the Obama determination with respect to its own SIP, and joined litigation against the national policy.
In a policy shift, EPA in the Register notice now argues that the D.C. Circuit’s rulings only apply to federal air rules -- and not SIPs. If applied to national policy, this would allow all states to retain affirmative defense provisions in their SIPs. The policy shift reflects comments last year from EPA air chief Bill Wehrum.
“I don't agree with everything that was done in the SIP Call,” he told reporters during a September Clean Air Act Advisory Committee meeting in Arlington, VA.
Following Region 6’s release of the proposal, a Texas environmentalist calls it “pretty astounding,” given that Houston has recently experienced two major industrial accidents resulting in releases of air pollution. “For Texas, this EPA rollback will make it harder to penalize violators,” the source says, adding that it will “sow confusion” over the scope of environmental enforcement in the state.
But EPA Region 6 in the proposal says it “recognizes that even equipment that is properly designed and maintained can sometimes fail. Further, because the specific affirmative defense provisions at issue herein apply to excess emissions that cannot be avoided by a source operator, removing these affirmative defense provisions from SIPs will not reduce emissions and therefore would not result in an environmental or public health or welfare benefit.”
EPA will take comment on the proposal for 60 days, until June 29.
Proposal’s Implications
The proposal would apply specifically to Texas, under EPA’s policy that allows regional offices to diverge from national policy where they receive concurrence from agency headquarters. EPA argues that a prior ruling by 5th Circuit upholding the Texas provisions at issue justifies the exemption.
Beyond the implications for industry in Texas, EPA’s proposal points toward a major national policy shift that would allow affirmative defense provisions in SIPs -- but not necessarily in EPA regulations.
EPA in 2015 issued its SIP Call demanding that 36 states, including Texas, amend their SIPs to remove SSM exemptions, including affirmative defense. The new proposal would rescind its earlier finding that the Texas plan is “substantially inadequate,” and end the SIP Call with respect to the Lone Star state.
Litigation brought by states against the national SIP Call remains in abeyance in the D.C. Circuit case Environmental Committee of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group, et al., v. EPA, while the Trump EPA considers its policy on SSM issues. In a Feb. 8 status report to the court, EPA says it is still considering what action it will take to reconsider the Obama SIP Call, and for its decision regarding Texas specifically.
“EPA Region 6 is proposing to make a finding that the affirmative defense provisions in the SIP for the state of Texas applicable to excess emissions that occur during certain upset events and unplanned maintenance, startup, or shutdown activities are narrowly tailored and limited to ensure protection of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)” and other air law requirements, the region says in the Register notice.
The agency bases the proposal on its “alternative” legal interpretation, which holds that the D.C. Circuit’s 2014 holding in Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) v. EPA, finding affirmative defense incompatible with federal courts’ authority to fashion penalties for air law violations, applies only to EPA regulations, and not SIPs. This view is bolstered in the Texas case by the 5th Circuit’s 2013 holding in Luminant Generating Co. v. EPA, where that court upheld the Texas exemptions, EPA says.
EPA continues to strip SSM exemptions, including affirmative defense, from its rules, but the new legal interpretation points toward a national policy that would allow the defense in state plans.
EPA Region 6 in the proposal notes differences between Clean Air Act section 110, which establishes the NAAQS and requires states to craft SIPs to meet them, and section 112, under which EPA sets directly-applicable air toxics standards for industrial sources. The 2014 NRDC ruling applied to an air toxics rule issued under section 112, and did not speak to SIPs, the agency says.
Further, the Obama EPA itself in 2010 approved the Texas affirmative defenses, prior to shifting its policy to oppose them in response to D.C. Circuit rulings, the regional office says.
Texas had proposed a narrow response to the SIP Call, which would have modified its rules to make clear that they are “applicable only to enforcement actions initiated by the state in state courts and are not intended to limit a federal court’s ability to determine appropriate remedies,” EPA notes. However, the state conditioned the rule upon a “final and nonappealable court decision” upholding the 2015 Obama SIP Call.
If EPA finalizes the proposal after reviewing upcoming public comments, the state may withdraw its proposed modification, which would then be unnecessary, EPA says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-approval-texas-%E2%80%98affirmative-defense%E2%80%99-hints-national-policy-shift
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EPA to Let Texas Shield Plants From Malfunction-Related Penalties
Apr 26, 2019 | Politico Pro
By Alex Guillén
EPA plans to allow Texas to shield the state's power plants, refineries and other industrial plants from civil penalties for pollution emitted during malfunctions, a move that could set the stage for similar allowances for other states.
“EPA Region 6 believes that it may be inappropriate to impose a civil penalty on sources for sudden and unavoidable emissions caused by circumstances beyond the control of the owner or operator,” the agency wrote in a proposal to be published in Monday’s Federal Register. “EPA Region 6 recognizes that even equipment that is properly designed and maintained can sometimes fail.”
The issue of the so-called “affirmative defense” language in regulations that shields sources from civil penalties for pollution released when a plant suffers a breakdown has been a policy priority for industry for years. Environmental groups have long complained that emissions can skyrocket during such malfunctions, potentially exceeding annual emissions caps in a matter of minutes or hours.
The latest regulatory fight started in 2014, when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that EPA cannot include affirmative defense provisions directly in its rules covering hazardous air pollutants, known as MACT rules. Those regulations require technology-based reductions imposed directly on sources. The court concluded that the shield impinged on judicial authority to determine civil penalties.
The Obama administration subsequently extended the D.C. Circuit’s legal reasoning to the State Implementation Plans that states file under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program. EPA in 2015 ordered three dozen states to re-work their SIPs to remove affirmative defense provisions. The directive was known in EPA lingo as the “SSM SIP call” because it covered emissions during periods of startup, shutdown or malfunction.
The Obama EPA argued that removing affirmative defenses would not necessarily open sources up to steep penalties over malfunction-related pollution. Both state regulators and judges would be able to take into account events beyond an operator’s control, the agency argued at the time.
But EPA is now reversing course — if only in Texas, for now.
EPA argued that while the courts struck down affirmative defenses in EPA-issued MACT rules, SIPs covering NAAQS are different. The Clean Air Act gives states “broad discretion” and “flexibility” to determine how to write their SIPs, the agency wrote in its proposal.
EPA did not answer questions about the proposal on Friday. The agency first revealed in October its plans to revisit the Texas provision.
"The threat here is that this Trump rollback will make it harder to enforce the Clean Air Act and to collect penalties from polluters. It definitely makes things more confusing," said Ilan Levin, associate director of the Environmental Integrity Project and an Austin resident.
Texas’s own affirmative defense provision was upheld in a 2013 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans, a factor that EPA said would make it “particularly inappropriate” to apply the D.C. Circuit’s legal reasoning there. There, the court concluded that Texas's provision had appropriately narrow language allowing, for example, regulators to order injunctive relief for ongoing pollution.
A January report from the group Environment Texas concluded that sources in the state suffered more than 4,000 breakdowns and other "upset" emissions events in 2017. The state could have collected between $277 million and $2.3 billion in fines, but ultimately levied about $1.3 million, the group said.
It was not immediately clear whether removing the affirmative defense provision would by itself increase state-level enforcement. But Environment Texas said in one citizen lawsuit over malfunction-related emissions against Exxon Mobil, a company manager testified that he always says an emissions event met the criteria for affirmative defense without "actually investigating or confirming." State investigators often base their enforcement decisions off of companies' claims.
Meanwhile, EPA also argued that the affirmative defense provision only covers "excess" pollution that can't be controlled by operators, meaning removing the affirmative defense provisions "would not result in an environmental or public health or welfare benefit."
"Therefore, EPA Region 6 is considering adopting a policy that affirmative defense provisions are generally permissible in SIPs when they are adequately protective,” EPA wrote.
For the moment, EPA said it is only proposing relief for Texas because of the unique 5th Circuit ruling on its provision.
However, it could form a template for other states if their language is close enough to the Texas provisions approved by the 5th Circuit.
"I think they’re going to roll out this Trump rollback … so the other states will follow," said Levin.
The agency invited comments on allowing similar provisions in the other Region 6 states: Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. All of those states were part of the "SSM SIP call" issued by EPA in 2015. EPA may also eventually expand its reasoning to all states, not just those in Region 6.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/04/epa-to-let-texas-shield-plants-from-malfunction-related-penalties-1385680
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New EPA Document Tells Communities to Brace for Climate Change Impacts
Apr 27, 2019 | The Washington Post
By Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis
The Environmental Protection Agency published a 150-page document this past week with a straightforward message for coping with the fallout from natural disasters across the country: Start planning for the fact that climate change is going to make these catastrophes worse.
The language, included in guidance on how to address the debris left in the wake of floods, hurricanes and wildfires, is at odds with the rhetoric of the EPA’s own leader, Andrew Wheeler. Just last month, Wheeler said in an interview with CBS that “most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out.”
Multiple recent studies have identified how climate change is already affecting the United States and the globe. In the western United States, for example, regional temperatures have increased by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s, and snowmelt is occurring a month earlier in areas, extending the fire season by three months and quintupling the number of large fires. Another scientific paper, co-authored by EPA researchers, found that unless the United States slashes carbon emissions, climate change will probably cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars annually by 2100.
The divergence between Wheeler and his own agency offers the latest example of the often contradictory way that federal climate policy has evolved under President Trump. As the White House has sought to minimize or ignore climate science, government experts have continued to sound the alarm.
The president has said he intends to withdraw the nation from a key international climate accord, but last fall 13 agencies issued a report concluding that “the evidence of human-caused climate change is overwhelming and continues to strengthen, that the impacts of climate change are intensifying across the country, and that climate-related threats to Americans’ physical, social, and economic well-being are rising.”
The White House has repeatedly sought ways to question the broad scientific consensus that human activities are driving climate change, and it is considering creating a federal advisory panel to reexamine those findings. But while the National Security Council is still pursuing the task force proposal, it has encountered resistance from military and intelligence officials as well as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Even some of the administration’s symbolic efforts to change the government’s climate message have fizzled. In the summer of 2017, top EPA officials had plans to tweak references to climate change in the agency’s official museum, and possibly to put a piece of coal on display. The overhaul plans stalled and are now not expected to materialize, according to two individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Still, Trump officials often home in on references to climate change in key documents.
In the case of the April 24 guidance from the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management, documents show, the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs sought to downplay climate change’s impact on the intensity of natural disasters. But these efforts, first reported by E&E News, did not entirely remove those references.
The document published Wednesday in the Federal Register repeatedly makes the link between climate change and more-severe floods, wildfires and storms.
While the White House struck one phrase attributing extreme weather events to climate change, the document still refers to “climate change” and “a changing climate” 22 times.
“According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, which is a detailed report on climate change impacts on the U.S., climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of some natural disasters,” it states. “The amount of debris generated by natural disasters, and the costs to manage it, will likely increase as a result.”
The guidance is directed toward “communities at increased risk from natural disasters due to climate change,” according to the document, which included a section titled “Incorporate Climate Change Adaptation into Debris Management Planning.”
Asked about the document Friday, the EPA declined to comment.
“This EPA guidance is clearly telling the public you need to start dealing now with disasters that are being made worse by climate change and will be made even worse due to climate change,” said Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate at the group Public Citizen. “It’s pretty troubling to me to see the head of EPA saying the exact opposite thing.”
To some extent, the new document reflects the advances scientists have made attributing extreme events to climate change since a landmark analysis was published in 2004 looking at a deadly European heat wave the year before.
The U.S. government’s main climate change website, Climate.gov, features a detailed explanation of how the science has evolved in recent years, including how federal researchers have contributed to the field.
“Scientists are increasingly able to distinguish evidence of human-induced climate change from natural variability,” according to the government explainer.
But the research into extreme event attribution is hardly limited to the government. Since 2011, the American Meteorological Society has compiled an annual assessment of how human-caused climate change probably affected the strength and frequency of extreme events such as record heat waves, droughts and wildfires.
The group has said that of the more than 130 peer-reviewed studies published as part of the annual reviews, about 65 percent have identified the fingerprints of climate change in extreme weather events, while about 35 percent found no clear connection.
“The science has really developed in the last decade, in particular, around the influence of global warming on extreme events,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor and senior fellow at Stanford University who studies the climate system.
For starters, he said, researchers are constantly gathering more data and studying more weather events, so that the observational record has grown over time. Computing power and modeling capabilities have improved. And there also has been an “explosion of research” on the topic, as scientists have developed frameworks for better evaluating the role of climate change in specific events.
The result, he said, is a growing body of research that details how human-caused climate change is contributing to record heat, more-intense storms, more-severe flooding and other events.
“It’s very clear from multiple lines of evidence that we are already being impacted by the global warming that’s already happened,” Diffenbaugh said.
During Wheeler’s confirmation hearing early this year, Democrats repeatedly tried to pin down Wheeler, who has lobbied in the past for the fossil fuel industry, about exactly where he stands on climate change and the risks it poses.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pressed Wheeler about whether he agreed with Trump’s comment that climate change amounted to a Chinese “hoax.” After being pressed, the acting administrator replied, “I have not used the ‘hoax’ word myself.”
Sanders then asked Wheeler whether he accepts the consensus of most scientists that climate change is one of the most serious problems facing the nation. “I would not call it the greatest crisis, no, sir,” he replied. “I would call it a huge issue that needs to be addressed globally.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-epa-document-tells-communities-to-brace-for-climate-change-impacts/2019/04/27/09cf8df6-6836-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html?utm_term=.6574cc2a8dc5
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Lawmakers Seek to Reduce Impact of Plastic Waste
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Philip Athey
The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology will hold what leaders hope is the first in a series of hearings about how emerging technologies can help reduce the environmental impact of plastic.
Over the past few years, awareness of plastic's role in pollution has grown, with an increasing number of bans on single-use plastics passing around the country.
Currently, California and New York have statewide bans on plastic grocery bags, while all of Hawaii's counties have passed bans.
States are not the only ones looking to get in the game of reducing plastics, with several companies committing to phase out use of plastic straws.
Famed "Aquaman" and "Game of Thrones" actor Jason Momoa shaved off his iconic beard in an effort to raise "awareness that plastics are killing our planet."
While the subcommittee does not plan on discussing any specific legislation, members will attempt to use the hearing to explore ways new technological advancements can aid with plastic recycling.
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, April 30, at 2 p.m. in 2318 Rayburn.
Witnesses:Paul Sincock, city manager, Plymouth, Mich.Govind Menon, director of the School of Science and Technology and chairman of the Department of Physics and Chemistry at Troy University.Gregg Beckham, senior research fellow, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Tim Boven, recycling commercial director, Dow Chemical Co.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/04/29/stories/1060234357
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Paris Legislation a 'Good Start,' but Advocates Expect More
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
The House will return this week to another barrage of climate messaging, including a vote on leadership's bill to keep the United States in the Paris climate agreement, a move Republicans are expected to loudly oppose.
After a rushed rollout earlier this month, H.R. 9 is destined for a quick death in the Senate, but it will mark the first piece of climate legislation Democrats will pass since winning the House in November.
While the Green New Deal has sucked the air out of the room during the last few months, H.R. 9 represents a more modest attempt by leadership to unify the Democratic caucus.
The bill would bar the Trump administration from using funds to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and require it to come up with a plan to meet the original U.S. emissions targets within 120 days.
Select Committee on the Climate Crisis Chairwoman Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), whose committee will hold its second hearing tomorrow, is the lead sponsor.
The bill does not lay out specific policies to meet the Paris goal of reducing emissions 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, and it does not go as far to address climate change as some in the caucus would have liked.
Leadership rushed the bill to the floor, with some Democratic staff finding out about H.R. 9 shortly before its announcement during a late March press conference (Greenwire, March 27).
Then, as the Energy and Commerce Committee marked up the bill earlier this month, Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) lamented leadership was pushing for a bill in the last week of April, forcing his panel to consider it more quickly than he would have liked. Ideally he said he would have held more thorough legislative hearings, though the committee of primary jurisdiction on H.R. 9 is Foreign Affairs.
Still, most members and staff have said the bill is an easy way for Democrats to show they're committed to addressing climate change early in the 116th Congress. More comprehensive measures, they say, will come during the next two years as Democrats develop a platform.
"I can accept the fact that it came together in a little bit of an improvised way perhaps, but I like the product, and it's the right thing to do," Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said in an interview.
It's clear that the environmental community, and rank-and-file members, are expecting more action on climate policy to come after H.R. 9.
"It's a good start," said Bill Snape, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The path forward is likely a variety of smaller measures on climate and energy efficiency in the coming months while the committees look for the best way to push more ambitious policy.
"It's not the only thing we need to do," Huffman said. "There's a lot more, but it's timely, and it's important."GOP shenanigans
On the other side of the aisle, Republicans are expected to make their own show out of H.R. 9.
They've already filed a tranche of proposed amendments with the Rules Committee, much as they did when the bill was considered in Foreign Affairs and Energy and Commerce, aimed at calculating economic effects and stressing the importance of natural gas and nuclear
One proposal from Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) would prevent the bill from taking effect until the Energy secretary certifies that China and Russia have committed to the same emissions reductions as the United States.
It takes to heart a common GOP talking point about Paris — that China, Russia and India are not doing their fair share to reduce emissions.
Another amendment, from Reps. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Michael Burgess (R-Texas), would require the Energy secretary to certify that gasoline and energy prices would not go up under the terms of the Paris Agreement.
Lawmakers have filed several other versions of that amendment, all of which are likely to be rejected.
And an amendment from Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) would attach the entire text of the Green New Deal to the bill.
The Rules panel will meet on the measure this afternoon, and while it's unclear which amendments they will allow for floor consideration, Flores' measure won't be the only attempt this week to force a vote on the progressive climate plan.
Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) is planning to file a discharge petition tomorrow on the Green New Deal, an ambitious outline to reduce emissions from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). That effort, however, is unlikely to garner the 218 signatures needed to bring it to the floor.
Another possibility for Republicans would be to force a vote on the Green New Deal or another measure via a motion to recommit, which they have used successfully in the past.
When the House voted in February on H.R. 8, the Democratic gun control bill, the GOP used a motion to recommit to tack on language targeting illegal immigrants who attempt to purchase firearms.
A spokeswoman for Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the office does not comment on future motions to recommit.
But while the vote on H.R. 9 is likely to be mostly along party lines, Democrats are hoping to get some defections among the handful of Republicans who support the Paris Agreement.
One possibility is Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who is the only GOP co-sponsor of a Democratic resolution supporting the Paris Agreement (E&E News PM, Feb. 8).
And the vote on H.R. 9 will come amid revived interest in climate change in the Republican Senate.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in Texas last week that the GOP needs to "cross the Rubicon" on climate, adding that Republicans are developing climate legislation that will likely center on natural gas and energy efficiency (Energywire, April 26).
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has also held multiple climate hearings this year and called for bipartisan work on the issue.Select committee meets again
Meanwhile, the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis will hold its second hearing tomorrow morning in what could be a preview of the panel's more substantive work.
Their first meeting brought in youth climate leaders to testify, but it also had plenty of the partisan fights and posturing that have long been featured in congressional climate debates.
During the "Solving the Climate Crisis: Drawing Down Carbon and Building Up the American Economy" hearing, lawmakers will hear testimony from four witnesses, including Diana Liverman, a professor of geography at the University of Arizona who was a lead author on the most recent U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
The Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment will also meet for its second climate hearing of the year tomorrow, discussing the public health effects of climate change.
Schedule: The Rules meeting is Monday, April 29, at 5 p.m. in H-312 Capitol.
Schedule: The Select Committee hearing is Tuesday, April 30, at 10 a.m. in TBA.
Witnesses:Diana Liverman, professor of geography at the University of Arizona.Hal Harvey, CEO of Energy Innovation.David Foster, distinguished associate with the Energy Futures Initiative.Christopher Guith, acting president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Energy Institute.
Schedule: The Oversight and Reform Subcommittee hearing is Tuesday, April 30, at 2 p.m. in 2154 Rayburn.
Witnesses: TBA.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/04/29/stories/1060237801
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California Restaurants Add Optional 1 Percent Surcharge to Help Combat Climate Change
Apr 27, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Morgan Gstalter
Some California restaurant-goers will now have the option to add a 1 percent surcharge to their bill to help farmers combat climate change.
The Restore California Renewable Restaurant program will give diners the opportunity to pay the voluntary fee as an addition to their check, CNN reported.
The money will go to a public fund run by the California Air Resources Board that helps farmers who use sustainable practices to reduce carbon emissions. The surcharges will pay farmers $10 per ton of carbon removed from the atmosphere.
The initiative, which launched Tuesday, is open to every restaurant to in the state and several have already jumped on board, according to CNN.
The fee is optional for customers to pay. Anthony Myint, one of the initiative's organizers and a restauranteur, told CNN that if every customer at a certain restaurant paid the surcharge, the money would make the establishment carbon neutral.
"Restore California closes the economic loop between producers and consumers, creating a renewable food system," the website states.
Myint said he hopes that the Restore California logo will be displayed by eateries online or in their windows with hopes of driving more customers to the environmentally conscious businesses.
"It's an exciting and enthusiastic approach to climate change," Myint said. "You're contributing with things that you like."
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/440936-california-restaurants-add-optional-1-percent-surcharge-to-help
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