Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 4/30/2019
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(ACC Mentioned) N American HDPE Sales Rise in March, Buoyed by Strong Export Growth
Apr 29, 2019 | ICIS
North American total sales of high density polyethylene (HDPE) were higher in March as strong export growth compensated for weakness in several major categories of domestic sales, according to data recently released by the American Chemistry Council (ACC)... -
(ACC Mentioned) Democrats Knock EPA Responses Under Wheeler
Apr 29, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Kelsey Tamborrino
...I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. American Chemistry Council's Andrew Fasoli gets the trivia win for knowing former President Barack Obama has one of the top 10 most retweeted tweets... -
EPA Region Reshuffle Could Thwart Enforcement, Union Head Says
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The EPA’s reorganization of its 10 regional offices risks dampening the agency’s enforcement of environmental protections by leaving decisions to the “whim of political appointees in D.C.,” the president of largest government workers’ union says. -
(ACC Mentioned) States Back Environmentalists’ Bid to Preserve Iris’ EtO Value for Air Rules
Apr 29, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
State regulators are joining environmentalists in urging EPA to continue using strict risk values for ethylene oxide (EtO), developed by its embattled Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, in its air toxics rules for hydrochloric acid (HCl) plants... -
(ACC Mentioned) California DTSC’s Toluene-Nail Care Profile Draws Industry Comments; ‘Shortcomings’ Noted
Apr 30, 2019 | HBW Insight
By Ryan Nelson
The American Chemistry Council says the department’s draft profile for nail products containing toluene, the latest Priority Product proposed under California’s Safer Consumer Products regulation, does not properly differentiate between consumer and worker exposures. -
US EPA Recommends Cleanup Level for PFOS and PFAS in Groundwater
Apr 26, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
With a number of caveats, the US Environmental Protection Agency is recommending the cleanup of groundwater tainted with more than 70 ppt of either of two widespread polyfluorinated chemicals. -
How the Combination of Multiple Contaminants Raises Cancer Risks
Apr 30, 2019 | Environmental Working Group
By Tasha Stoiber and Olga Naidenko
The array of toxic pollutants in California drinking water could in combination cause more than 15,000 excess cases of cancer, according to a peer-reviewed study by scientists at Environmental Working Group... -
EU to Consider Blanket Restriction for Allergens in Textiles (1)
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Dyes, antimicrobial treatments, fragrances, and tanning agents are among 1,075 chemical substances that the European Union is considering banning or restricting in garments and other textile products. -
Aerospace Organisation Releases Substance Reporting Tool
Apr 30, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
The International Aerospace Environmental Group (IAEG) has released a tool to help the global aerospace and defence industry and their supply chains gather and report on substances and materials. -
U.S. Still Processing Atlantic Seismic Permits Despite Drilling Plan Delay
Apr 30, 2019 | Reuters
By Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom
The U.S. Interior Department is still processing permit applications for companies to conduct seismic testing in the Atlantic - a precursor to drilling - despite shelving its plan to vastly expand offshore drilling, a spokeswoman said on Monday. -
N.Y. Bans Offshore Drilling in Effort to Prevent Trump Expansion
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Keshia Clukey
New York State has banned offshore oil and natural gas drilling along its Atlantic coastal waters in an effort to block a Trump administration proposal. -
Chaco Canyon Oil and Gas Leases Blocked on New Mexico State Land
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brenna Goth
New Mexico is halting new oil and gas leases on nearly 73,000 acres of state land near Chaco Canyon, a hub of archaeological sites in the northwestern part of the state. -
Support Us Energy Trade by Approving USMCA
Apr 29, 2019 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Mark Green
Winning on trade looks like this: -
Ethane Storage Seen as Key to Revitalization of Appalachia
Apr 30, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)
By Mark Gillispie
Plans are underway in Appalachia to create two underground facilities to store ethane, a byproduct of natural gas drilling seen as integral to revitalizing a region still struggling from the loss of industrial and manufacturing jobs decades ago. -
Charges Filed After Fire at Texas Petrochemical Facility
Apr 30, 2019 | AP (In The New York Times)
Water pollution charges were filed Monday against a company that owns a Houston-area petrochemical storage facility where a large fire that burned for days in March caused chemicals to flow into a nearby waterway. -
Corning, Philips Won’t Face Toxic Tort Emotional Distress Claims
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Corning Inc. won dismissal of claims for emotional distress by children living near a former glass manufacturing plant who say they are at increased risk of developing disease from toxic substances emanating from the site. -
Emp Attack Could Cause Crippling Blackouts — Report
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
Researchers studying the impacts of a nuclear weapon detonation in the atmosphere warned yesterday that shock waves from the explosion could potentially cause a paralyzing multistate blackout... -
Democrats Press Trump on 'Clean Energy and Resiliency'
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
President Trump is set to meet with Democratic leadership today about infrastructure legislation, as questions swirl over funding options and climate change components of the bill. -
North Dakota Congressional Delegation Urges Veto of Washington Oil Train Legislation
Apr 30, 2019 | Bismark Tribune
By Amy Dalrymple
North Dakota’s congressional delegation is urging the governor of Washington state to veto legislation they say would result in a “de facto ban” of crude-by-rail traffic from the Bakken. -
White House Threatens Veto for House Paris Climate Bill
Apr 30, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna
President Donald Trump's advisers would recommend he veto legislation H.R. 9 (116) barring the U.S. from withdrawing from the Paris climate accord should it reach his desk, according to a statement of administration policy. -
House GOP Starts Uphill Push This Week for Green Deal Vote (1)
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
House Republicans will begin an effort May 1 to collect signatures to bring the Green New Deal resolution for a floor vote, according to House Minority Whip Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) office. -
Ex-Trump Aide Who Backed Paris Accord Said to Join House Panel
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter
A former White House environmental adviser who fought to keep the U.S. in a global pact to slash greenhouse gas emissions is joining the Republican staff of a House climate change committee, one of two appointments signaling the party’s shift in strategy on the issue. -
Green New Deal Isn't Going Away
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
Congress can't seem to escape the Green New Deal. -
In a Switch, Some Republicans Start Citing Climate Change as Driving Their Policies
Apr 30, 2019 | New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
When John Barrasso, a Republican from oil and uranium-rich Wyoming who has spent years blocking climate change legislation introduced a bill this year to promote nuclear energy, he added a twist: a desire to tackle global warming. -
Environmentalists Form New Group to Back States' Transport Climate Plan
Apr 29, 2019 | Inside EPA
Dozens of national, regional and local environmental groups are forming a new coalition to support Northeast and Mid-Atlantic state efforts to craft a regional cap-and-trade program curbing transportation sector greenhouse gases, as the states begin their first public meetings to craft the plan. -
Pennsylvania Joins State Alliance Focused on Paris Climate Goals
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Herzfeld
Pennsylvania became the newest member of a multistate coalition aligned behind the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases. -
O'Rourke Pushes Dems on Climate with Texas-Sized Plan
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews
The ambitious climate plan unveiled yesterday by Beto O'Rourke underscored the new reality of global warming politics: Aggressiveness on the issue — at least on the left — has shifted from Congress to the presidential campaign trail. -
EPA Steps Closer to Undoing 2015 Air Rule for Texas
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Stinson
The EPA is one step closer to granting Texas a sought-after exemption to a 2015 rule limiting emissions during startups, shutdowns, and malfunctions at industrial boilers and facilities. -
In Response to Lawmakers, CARB Finds No ‘Oversupply’ of GHG Credits
Apr 30, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Cal/EPA are reiterating previous declarations that there is no “oversupply” of greenhouse gas credits in the state’s cap-and-trade program, telling state lawmakers that there is no reason to withdraw any credits from the system... -
Los Angeles Unveils Version of Green New Deal
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Anne C. Mulkern
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) today unveiled an ambitious plan to make the nation's second-largest city a Green New Deal leader, with lofty goals for electric vehicles and zero-emissions buildings.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) N American HDPE Sales Rise in March, Buoyed by Strong Export Growth
Apr 29, 2019 | ICIS
North American total sales of high density polyethylene (HDPE) were higher in March as strong export growth compensated for weakness in several major categories of domestic sales, according to data recently released by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Vault Consulting.
Exports continued to grow at a strong pace in March despite an ongoing trade dispute with China. The US is in the midst of a large build-up in new HDPE capacity, most of which is being targeted at export markets.
While total sales volume found support from rising export activity, most major categories of domestic sales posted decreases compared with March of last year, although some sales categories were higher once data for the full first quarter was accounted for.
ACC production, sales and export data is based on voluntary reports from participating companies.
Major US producers of PE include Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem), DowDuPont, LyondellBasell, ExxonMobil, Formosa, INEOS, Total Petrochemicals and Westlake.
https://www.icis.com/explore/resources/news/2019/04/29/10355305/n-american-hdpe-sales-rise-in-march-buoyed-by-strong-export-growth
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(ACC Mentioned) Democrats Knock EPA Responses Under Wheeler
Apr 29, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Kelsey Tamborrino
With help from Alex Guillén, Annie Snider and Eric Wolff
— Democrats complain that EPA is stonewalling their oversight efforts even more now that Administrator Andrew Wheeler is in charge.
— Today is the deadline for comments on EPA's proposed rule to allow year-round sales of 15 percent ethanol.
— House Democrats are hoping to pass their bill to keep the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement this week. The first step in that effort kicks off tonight with a Rules Committee meeting.
WELCOME TO MONDAY! I'm your host, Kelsey Tamborrino. American Chemistry Council's Andrew Fasoli gets the trivia win for knowing former President Barack Obama has one of the top 10 most retweeted tweets. For today: Which former president's first job was as a baseball announcer? Bonus points if you can name the team he primarily covered. Send your tips, energy gossip and comments to ktamborrino@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter @kelseytam, @Morning_Energy and @POLITICOPro.
DEMS COMPLAIN OF RESPONSE TIME UNDER WHEELER: Democratic lawmakers say there's been a consistent lack of response from EPA on several key oversight issues — and they say it's been worse under Andrew Wheeler than Scott Pruitt, who left the Trump administration under a cloud of ethical scandals, Pro's Anthony Adragna reports this morning.
Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Tom Carpersaid he has not received a "complete or adequate response" from EPA in more than a year and heard nothing from the agency on any of the 10 letters he's sent since Wheeler first became acting administrator in July 2018, according to a spokeswoman. Among the letters Democrats say they've received "zero response" to are ones seeking information on potential political meddling in health assessment linking the chemical formaldehyde with cancer and the dismissal of scientists from an agency’s clean air advisory group.
"I would say that Scott Pruitt's scandal-ridden administration at EPA should not serve as the baseline for success on any issue, but the sad truth is that EPA has actually been less responsive to Democrats' oversight requests since the time Administrator Wheeler became acting administrator," Carper said in a statement.
At the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Democrats say they have struggled to receive adequate responses, too. The House Oversight Committee has already warned it would consider subpoenaing Wheeler if he failed to provide documents related to a former biofuels client.
EPA pushed back on both Carper's and the E&C's claims, saying it provided more than 25,000 pages of documents to EPW and more than 7,000 pages to E&C, as well as briefings from senior officials. "EPA has been responsive to requests from the Senate and House Democrats, any assertion otherwise is false," EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said in a statement.
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.
AROUND THE AGENCIES
EPA CLARIFIES PFAS GUIDANCE: Despite omitting a trigger to take action in the policy guidelines issued last week, EPA says it expects polluters to take emergency steps to stop people from drinking water with levels of two toxic chemicals above the level it says is safe. In an email sent Friday to Carper's staff and shared with POLITICO, an EPA congressional affairs staffer said that in places where groundwater that is a current source of drinking water contains PFOA and PFOS at levels above 70 parts per trillion, "EPA expects responsible parties to take immediate steps to stop consumption. This could include providing bottled water or other alternative water supplies."
The clarification comes after the agency released draft groundwater cleanup guidance that did not include a trigger for emergency action — a trigger that would have applied to groundwater that was either a current or potential drinking water source, and was originally included in the document before it went through White House review. The staffer told Carper's office that the emergency trigger was dropped because it was "causing confusion instead of providing clarity."
PENCILS DOWN: E15, MARKET REFORM COMMENTS DUE: Today is the deadline for comments on EPA's proposed rule to allow year-round sales of 15 percent ethanol as well as the changes to the market in compliance credits, called Renewable Identification Numbers. While the corn and ethanol industries have predictably lined up for the expansion and the oil industry pushing against it, the battle over RIN market changes is shuffling the normal alliances.
Ethanol groups believe EPA should leave well enough alone when it comes to the RIN market, and they are joined by the American Petroleum Institute. Meanwhile refining giant Valero Energy, in its comments, backs many of the changes, but says they "fall short of effectively advancing the goals of enhancing the efficiency and integrity of the RIN market."
WHERE'S PERRY? Energy Secretary Rick Perry is back in Europe this week to participate in the U.S.-EU Energy Council High-Level Business Forum set for Thursday in Brussels. Joining Perry at the event: European Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete; U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon D. Sondland; Dominique Ristori, director general for energy at the European Commission; and IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.
POLITICIANS REMEMBER LIFE OF LUJÁN: Former Interior Secretary Manuel Luján Jr. died Thursday at the age of 90. A New Mexico native, Luján served as a Republican congressman and Interior secretary during the George H.W. Bush administration. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham, a distant cousin, said he died Thursday at his home in Albuquerque, after suffering from a long history of heart issues.
"Manuel Lujan was the picture of a statesman. In a lifetime of public service, over the course of ten Congressional terms and four years as secretary of the Interior, he fought for his constituents, striving for balance between competing interests, never forgetting that New Mexicans' collective best interest must come first," Luján Grisham said in a statement.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt mourned Luján. "Mr. Luján's passion for public service and dedication to this country will forever be remembered in the halls of the Department," Bernhardt tweeted. Read the Albuquerque Journal obituary.
ON THE HILL
UTILITIES REPLY TO E&C UARG PROBE: The House Energy and Commerce Committee has received initial responses to all of its information requests earlier this month seeking details on the Utility Air Regulatory Group and its connections to EPA air chief Bill Wehrum, according to a spokeswoman. E&C sent letters to eight major utilities as well as Hunton Andrews Kurth, Wehrum's old law firm that houses UARG. Most of the utilities included in the E&C probe appear to have remained in UARG, though several smaller utilities have left it in recent weeks. It's not clear when or how E&C will advance its probe, but the committee was focusing on whether any utilities used ratepayers' money to make their UARG payments.
FOR YOUR RADAR: The Senate will take a procedural step today on the nomination of Bill Cooper for general counsel of the Energy Department. The chamber will vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Cooper's nomination at 5:30 p.m.
RULES PANEL TAKES UP CLIMATE BILL: The House Rules Committee will meet this evening on H.R. 9 (116), Democrats' bill that would bar the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and demand the Trump administration craft a plan for hitting its emissions reduction targets. The committee will work through close to 90 amendments. The bill is expected to hit the House floor as early as Wednesday.
Related: The League of Conservation Voters sent a letter to lawmakers Friday in support of the bill.
SUNRISE MAKES FIRST 2020 ENDORSEMENT: Sunrise Movement, the youth-led environmental group, made its first endorsement of the 2020 cycle: California's Audrey Denney, an agricultural educator running to replace Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa. "She's spent her life working to help farmers and rural communities in the district put food on the table for their families and be part of environmental solutions," said Sunrise co-founder Varshini Prakash in a statement. Sunrise criticized LaMalfa, who represents areas hit by last year's wildfires, for his comments denying human's role in climate change and contributions he's taken from corporate PACs.
TRANSFORMING 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.
BEYOND THE BELTWAY
GOLDMAN PRIZE WINNERS ANNOUNCED: Winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize that is given to grass-roots environmental activists were announced this morning. The U.S. prize-winner, Linda Garcia, is a community activist who helped block the construction of the Tesoro/Savage oil terminal, which would have been North America's largest. Garcia first learned about the Tesoro project planned for the Port of Vancouver, Wash., in April 2013, and she built opposition by gathering advocates from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the Columbia Riverkeepers, the Sierra Club and from small business owners' associations. See the full list of winners.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-energy/2019/04/29/democrats-knock-epa-responses-under-wheeler-429842
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EPA Region Reshuffle Could Thwart Enforcement, Union Head Says
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith
The EPA’s reorganization of its 10 regional offices risks dampening the agency’s enforcement of environmental protections by leaving decisions to the “whim of political appointees in D.C.,” the president of largest government workers’ union says.
The reorganization, which will finish taking effect the week of April 29, changes the structure of the 10 regional offices to mirror that of the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters office. For some regions, that involves significant changes to their organization, including for four regions consolidating enforcement into a separate division.
But moving environmental enforcement in those regions from the air, water, and other program offices to a separate division could undermine the enforcement work of those regions by exposing it to political interference, J. David Cox Sr., national president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, wrote in an April 29 letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, obtained by Bloomberg Environment. The union represents more than 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers, including 8,000 EPA employees.
Each of the four enforcement divisions would have a director who reports to a politically appointed regional administrator, who then reports to headquarters.
“These changes would weaken environmental enforcement and expose enforcement decisions to the whim of political appointees in DC,” Cox wrote. “If enforcement is influenced by political motivation, then there will be no structure to hold polluters accountable.”
The EPA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on enforcement concerns and the implementation of the regional reorganization.
Reorganization Takes EffectThe EPA’s regions began reshuffling April 15, though the reorganization plan has been in the works since September 2018.
EPA officials, including Wheeler, have said the regional office restructuring is aimed to improve coordination between the agency’s headquarters and the regional offices.
But the reorganization has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers in recent weeks.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), the top Democrat on the panel overseeing the EPA’s funding, raised concerns about the EPA’s staffing losses in a letter to Wheeler earlier in the month, urging him to focus resources on filling vacant positions rather than reorganizing.
Staffing LossesCox also pointed to dramatic staffing losses at the agency.
He said 1,600 EPA staffers have left the agency since 2016 and fewer than 400 new employees have been hired to fill those slots. Of those totals, 670 employees have left the regional offices since January 2017, and the EPA has only hired 73 workers to fill regional positions.
“With this decline in hiring, EPA employees who remain at the agency get stuck with an ever-increasing workload,” Cox said.
Cox, in his letter, asked Wheeler to pledge to allow enforcement staff to “pursue cases free from political interference and with adequate resources at their disposal.” That includes ensuring any new regional enforcement divisions have enough funding to travel to conduct inspections necessary for enforcement actions, he added.
Cox also urged Wheeler to undertake “accelerated hiring” in the 10 regional offices. In total, the EPA should reach 16,500 full-time equivalent employees, Cox said.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/epa-region-reshuffle-could-thwart-enforcement-union-head-says
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(ACC Mentioned) States Back Environmentalists’ Bid to Preserve Iris’ EtO Value for Air Rules
Apr 29, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
State regulators are joining environmentalists in urging EPA to continue using strict risk values for ethylene oxide (EtO), developed by its embattled Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, in its air toxics rules for hydrochloric acid (HCl) plants, though the states stop short of threatening to sue over the issue as environmentalists are.
In its March 28 comments, the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), representing air regulators from 41 states, says “it is correct and appropriate for EPA to use the updated IRIS risk value for EtO for regulatory purposes. It is troubling that the agency would even consider doing otherwise.”
At issue is EPA’s proposed risk-and-technology review (RTR) for the HCl manufacturing sector, an eight-year review of the adequacy of federal air toxics rules, where the agency invites comment on whether it should continue to rely on its conservative 2016 IRIS risk value for EtO.
The assessment affirmed long-suspected claims that the chemical, used as an intermediate to make other chemical products like detergent, antifreeze and polyester, and to sterilize medical equipment and foods, causes breast and lymph cancers. It also classified the substance as a known carcinogen and recommended a conservative risk value.
But chemical and other industry groups are concerned that the IRIS value will drive overly conservative regulatory standards. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) last year petitioned EPA to stop using the EtO values in rules, saying it is not justified since the substance is present in ambient air at much lower concentrations than what is assumed in the IRIS assessment.
However, EPA’s reconsideration of the issue in the HCl rule has prompted significant concern from environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers, who charge it bolsters the chemical industry’s pending petition and, if granted, would set a broad precedent that would undermine the protectiveness of the rules.
At a March 27 public hearing on the proposal, environmentalists, represented by Earthjustice, hinted at a lawsuit, warning EPA that any attempt to drop use of the IRIS value for EtO when crafting air toxics rules would result in unlawful regulations. The Clean Air Act “does not allow the agency to ignore the best available science,” Michelle Mabson, a staff scientist at Earthjustice, said in her testimony.
The state regulators in their comments echo environmentalists concerns but stop short of issuing an explicit legal threat. “Considering the importance of the IRIS process in general and the comprehensive nature of the EtO review in particular, there would be no justification for abandoning the use of the updated EtO information during the regulatory process. In fact, for EPA to hint that it is contemplating whether or not to use a value that was so recently and thoroughly reviewed and updated undermines the IRIS assessment process itself,” NACAA says.
NACAA also raises concerns about EPA’s use of census track “centroids” to evaluate exposure risks, arguing that the agency should instead evaluate risk to people located closest to sources of air emissions such as facility fencelines.
NACAA further faults the agency for relying on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGLs) or Emergency Response Planning Guidelines (ERPGs) values to address acute exposures in the residual risk assessments, saying these are inappropriate tools for RTRs.
“AEGLs and ERPGs do not include adequate safety and uncertainty factors and cannot be relied upon to protect the public from the adverse effects of exposure to toxic air pollutants. The use of AEGLs or ERPGs in residual risk assessments is not appropriate and does not ensure that public health is adequately protected from the acute impacts of HAP exposure,” NACAA says.
Local Officials
Other local government officials are also backing states’ calls for EPA to continue using strict risk values. For example, officials in DuPage County, IL -- home to the Sterigenics sterilization facility in Willowbrook, IL, which is at the center of intense controversy over its EtO emissions and possible health impact on the surrounding community -- urged EPA in their comments to retain strict risk values.
“We are deeply concerned that the risk modeling used in conjunction with the risk assessment contained in the proposed rules document will be applied to other source categories that emit ethylene oxide that will result in greater health risks to residents living in areas impacted by Facilities emitting ethylene oxide,” the officials write in a March 21 letter.
“We respectfully request that the risk modelling used for facilities emitting ethylene oxide not be lowered. Rather, we request that the health risk modeling for ethylene oxide emitting facilities reflect the most recent designation of the component as a carcinogen,” the country officials say.
Meanwhile, a broad coalition of environmental and public health groups in its April 26 comments offers a detailed defense of the IRIS risk value for EtO, and takes direct aim at ACC’s criticisms of the IRIS assessment.
The groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice and a host of others reiterate their earlier argument that failure to use the IRIS value would be “ignoring the best available science."
And they push back on ACC’s argument that the IRIS values are not appropriate for air toxics rules, saying such an approach would greatly underestimate potential risks. “The bottom line is that the IRIS toxicity and carcinogenicity modeling and approach are reasonably appropriate, though much more likely to underestimate risk than to overestimate it. The basis for ACC's claim is unclear and ACC’s methodology has not been made public.”
“ACC and its industry members defensively and seemingly endlessly challenge the existing evidence of harm -- often without any new data or information - while dangerous and deadly chemical pollution continues,” the groups say. They call for EPA to evaluate the cumulative impact of not only EtO, but also other toxics pollutants released at the same locations.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-back-environmentalists%E2%80%99-bid-preserve-iris%E2%80%99-eto-value-air-rules
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Apr 30, 2019 | HBW Insight
By Ryan Nelson
The American Chemistry Council says the department’s draft profile for nail products containing toluene, the latest Priority Product proposed under California’s Safer Consumer Products regulation, does not properly differentiate between consumer and worker exposures. The Personal Care Products Council primarily wants to ensure that toluene is properly excluded when present as a trace contaminant.
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here: https://hbw.pharmaintelligence.informa.com/RS148766/California-DTSCs-TolueneNail-Care-Profile-Draws-Industry-Comments-Shortcomings-Noted
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US EPA Recommends Cleanup Level for PFOS and PFAS in Groundwater
Apr 26, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
With a number of caveats, the US Environmental Protection Agency is recommending the cleanup of groundwater tainted with more than 70 ppt of either of two widespread polyfluorinated chemicals.
The EPA’s April 25 draft interim recommendations would apply only to groundwater that is a current or potential source of drinking water and would not have the legal force of regulations. They would also apply only in states that lack what the agency deems an “appropriate” drinking water standard for the two chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorosulfonic acid (PFOS). The recommendations follow the EPA 2016 health advisory limit of 70 ppt for PFOS and PFOA, individually or combined, in drinking water.
The two substances, which are no longer commercially produced in the US, contaminate groundwater across the nation and the world. In many areas, the pollution stems from military bases and airports that for years used fire-fighting foams containing PFOS, PFOA, or both. The chemicals were also used as industrial surfactants and to make nonstick coatings.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware) criticizes the EPA’s recommendations because they fail to include emergency responses, such as providing bottled drinking water.
“People drinking water contaminated at levels well in excess of 70 ppt may not be entitled to safe drinking water during the months or years cleanup could take to complete,” Carper says.
David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, says because recommendations aren’t legally binding, there’s no guarantee that those liable for pollution, notably industry or the military, will abide by them.
The Department of Defense last year suggested a cleanup level of 380 ppt for PFOS and PFOA in groundwater. Andrews tells C&EN that because these chemicals are mobile in groundwater, it is important for the level that triggers cleanup to be no higher than 70 ppt. This will help prevent PFOS and PFOA moving through an aquifer from tainting clean water to levels above EPA’s health advisory limit.
The FluoroCouncil, which represents companies that make many types of fluorochemicals, did not respond to requests for comment by C&EN’s deadline.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/US-EPA-recommends-cleanup-level/97/web/2019/04
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How the Combination of Multiple Contaminants Raises Cancer Risks
Apr 30, 2019 | Environmental Working Group
By Tasha Stoiber and Olga Naidenko
The array of toxic pollutants in California drinking water could in combination cause more than 15,000 excess cases of cancer, according to a peer-reviewed study by scientists at Environmental Working Group – the first such study to assess the cumulative risk from carcinogenic drinking water contaminants.
For an article published today in the journal Environmental Health, EWG scientists analyzed state and federal data on carcinogens and other toxic contaminants that were detected from 2011 to 2015 in more than 2,700 California community water systems.
They developed a groundbreaking method of calculating the combined health impacts of multiple contaminants in a single water supply.
EWG found that the greatest risks tended to be in small to midsize communities, highlighting that these places are often the most in need of costly treatment systems and other infrastructure to ensure safe drinking water. The greatest risks were from arsenic, byproducts of disinfectant chemicals, and hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, the notorious “Erin Brockovich” chemical.
Drinking water rarely contains only one contaminant, yet regulators currently assess the health hazards of tap water pollutants one by one. This ignores the combined effects of multiple pollutants, which is how people ingest them in the real world. Regulators commonly use the cumulative risk approach to assess the health impacts of multiple air pollutants, but the EWG study is the first known use of this method for drinking water contaminants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publishes a cumulative risk assessment of carcinogenic air pollutants, known as the National Air Toxics Assessment. The EPA has also proposed evaluating some contaminants by groups, such as volatile organic compounds to make the regulatory process more efficient. EWG’s study builds on these concepts to assess tap water contaminants.
For California water systems, we compared contaminant levels to the cancer risk benchmarks published by the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, or OEHHA, and the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System. The benchmarks are the levels that scientists calculate pose a one-in-a-million risk of cancer – the chance that one person out of a population of one million will develop cancer if he or she drinks the water for a 70-year lifetime. Legal doesn’t always mean safe
Most U.S. drinking water systems meet all state and federal legal limits. In California, 90 percent of systems met all federal standards for the past seven years, according to the state’s Safe Drinking Water Information System. But legal doesn’t always mean safe.
Legal limits are based on economic and political considerations that usually don’t reflect the lower levels that scientists have found pose health risks. Indeed, over 85 percent of the cancer risk calculated in the EWG study is due to contaminants that were below legal limits. Legal limits may also be based on outdated science: No new contaminants have been added to the list of nationally regulated drinking water pollutants in two decades.
The study found:
· About 3.1 million Californians get their tap water from 495 systems in which contaminants pose a cumulative lifetime cancer risk greater than one additional case per 1,000 people. In those communities, typically small to medium size, an estimated 4,860 people could develop cancer from drinking their tap water.
· The largest group of Californians – about 28.5 million – get their tap water from 1,177 systems in which contaminants pose a cancer risk of one per 1,000 to one per 10,000 people. In those communities, an estimated 10,427 cases of cancer could be due to contaminants tap water.
· Statewide, nearly two-thirds of drinking water systems contained at least two cancer-causing contaminants in excess of one-in-a-million risk levels.
It’s clear that existing national and state drinking water standards fail to address the health impacts of exposure to multiple pollutants that may be present simultaneously in drinking water. It’s also clear that the federal government’s approach of regulating one contaminant at a time is slow and inefficient.
Federal laws governing the quality of both drinking water and water resources overall must be strengthened to limit tap water contamination and modernize our aging water infrastructure. In the absence of federal leadership, states should take steps to set and enforce drinking water standards that are more rigorous and health-protective than those required by the EPA. Ensuring a safe water supply is a fundamental responsibility of government, and we must demand that public officials at every level step up and fix the badly broken system.What should the state of California and community water systems do?
Future applications of the cumulative assessment framework developed by EWG would advance water treatment strategies for multiple contaminants in a drinking water supply and help protect public health. The economic benefits of removing multiple contaminants with one treatment technology will help to inform decision-making.
Since 2012, California has championed the Human Right to Water as an essential framework to help communities that lack access to safe and affordable drinking water. Using the cumulative risk approach to assess communities’ water quality will help direct resources where they are most needed.
For small and midsize communities, finding affordable resources for installation of new and improved water treatment technologies is often difficult. The new risk assessment methods used in the EWG study can help communities and water utilities better evaluate the benefits of water treatment technologies that reduce multiple contaminants simultaneously.What can you do now?
Individuals and families can take steps to make sure they and their families are drinking the cleanest, safest water possible. Use the EWG Tap Water Database to see whether contaminants were detected in your water. If harmful contaminants were found in your water, even at levels below the federal legal limits, EWG highly recommends filtering your water.
https://www.ewg.org/research/california-drinking-water
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EU to Consider Blanket Restriction for Allergens in Textiles (1)
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
Dyes, antimicrobial treatments, fragrances, and tanning agents are among 1,075 chemical substances that the European Union is considering banning or restricting in garments and other textile products.
The European Chemicals Agency will in June start a public consultation on the plan, which would largely prohibit from textiles substances identified in the EU as causing allergies or skin problems.
The restriction, which would be adopted under the EU’s REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals), would cover 25 synthetic dyes typically used for coloring materials such as nylon and polyester, and all substances that the bloc classifies as skin sensitizers, including chromium IV and nickel compounds, formaldehyde, and diisocyanates and phthalate esters, which are used in protective coatings for textiles.
The restriction was needed because “it is difficult for consumers to avoid exposure” to skin sensitizers in textiles, said Helena Dorfh, risk manager with the Swedish Chemicals Agency, which put forth the proposal along with the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses).
Of the 1,075 substances under consideration, it is likely only about 95 are actively being used in clothing and textiles, but “since there is no legal requirement for the producers to list the chemicals present in textile and leather articles, we do not know which substances may be present and which have been phased out,” Dorfh said.
There could be up to 180,000 cases per year of consumers in the EU suffering allergic reactions or problems caused by skin sensitizers in textiles, according to the French and Swedish report that proposed the restriction.
Dyes TargetedThe restriction proposal would ban outright the 25 synthetic dyes while setting concentration limits of 130 milligrams per kilogram or less for most other substances covered by the plan.
If adopted, the restriction would affect all in-scope products sold on the EU market, including clothing, footwear, bed linen, cushion covers, sleeping bags, and handbags. Products found to be noncompliant would be removed from the market.
Industry group the European Apparel & Textile Confederation said in an April 29 email: “While it is too early to comment on the impact of the 95 substances and preliminary scope, EURATEX welcomes the effort to increase consumer protection with this restriction, in addition to voluntary initiatives that the businesses are already doing to ensure product safety. This restriction may truly contribute to safety of textile articles if properly enforced, which pose challenges in case of imported products, due to large amounts of items.”
Companies would be able to comply with the restriction by either substituting less harmful chemicals or by improving their manufacturing processes to reduce the number of substances left in finished products, according to Dorfh.
Many are already taking steps to minimize hazardous substances in clothing, and “well-known brands selling quality products are in general more aware of concerns related to chemical use and have come further in their work with substitution,” she said.
“Sensitizers are a severe and growing concern for consumer health,” and the proposal from France and Sweden was “great news,” said Pelle Moos, health policy officer with the European Consumer Organization in Brussels.
The REACH restriction on skin sensitizers would follow on from a similar EU restriction on 33 cancer-causing substances in textiles, which takes effect in November 2020.
Following the public consultation on the proposal, which will run through late 2019, the European Chemicals Agency’s scientific committees will adopt opinions on the proposed restriction, which will be forwarded to the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, for a final decision.
(Adds comment from European Apparel & Textile Confederation in ninth paragraph.)
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/eu-to-consider-blanket-restriction-for-allergens-in-textiles
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Aerospace Organisation Releases Substance Reporting Tool
Apr 30, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
The International Aerospace Environmental Group (IAEG) has released a tool to help the global aerospace and defence industry and their supply chains gather and report on substances and materials.
The tool aims to "meet the demands of increasingly complex, global chemical substance regulations and restrictions," says the IAEG. Through regulations, such as the EU’s REACH, aerospace and defence industry companies must report product-related substance data.
The tool, called the Aerospace and Defence Substance Reporting Tool (AD-SRT), is a Microsoft Excel-based tool that allows companies to capture and report information related to substance declaration. It includes the following data fields:
• information about the supplier;
• product information; and
• substance information, including the chemicals contained in the supplied product, used in product development or required for product operation or maintenance.
The IAEG, which is a non-profit organisation of global aerospace companies, says that in providing substance data to various customers, suppliers must often respond to multiple requests in different formats with data obtained from upstream suppliers.
"This results in inefficient data collection, increasing costs and time-to-market risks for the industry," it says.
This inefficiency also interferes with the suppliers’ ability to respond with adequate data accuracy, which it says "places a strain on the customer-supplier relationship". It also risks final products being non-compliant.
"Suppliers are burdened with various declaration requests in multiple formats from their customers," says Sally Gestautas, chair of the IAEG.
The AD-SRT "provides a standard tool to help them more efficiently fulfil their reporting requirements," she says.
The new tool is designed to work with the Aerospace and Defence Declarable Substances List (AD-DSL), which contains substances of interest to the industry, including those that are regulated or which may become regulated.
The IAEG says it is also compatible with the recently released IPC1754 standard, ‘Materials and Substances Declaration Standard for Aerospace and Defence and Other Industries.’
https://chemicalwatch.com/76963/aerospace-organisation-releases-substance-reporting-tool
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U.S. Still Processing Atlantic Seismic Permits Despite Drilling Plan Delay
Apr 30, 2019 | Reuters
By Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom
The U.S. Interior Department is still processing permit applications for companies to conduct seismic testing in the Atlantic - a precursor to drilling - despite shelving its plan to vastly expand offshore drilling, a spokeswoman said on Monday.
Atlantic coastal state lawmakers, businesses and conservation groups are adamant that Interior should not allow seismic testing - a process that often uses powerful air guns to map resources below the ocean floor - arguing the surveys hurt marine life, such as the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
Newly confirmed Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said last week the agency’s five-year plan for oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) would be sidelined indefinitely after a March court ruling blocked drilling in the Arctic and part of the Atlantic Ocean.
But Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is responsible for managing energy development on the OCS, continues to review the applications of a half-dozen seismic testing companies awaiting permits to test for oil and gas drilling potential on the Atlantic Ocean floor.
“BOEM is continuing to process the permit applications for conducting seismic surveys in the Atlantic, consistent with applicable law,” BOEM spokeswoman Tracey Moriarty said in an emailed statement on Monday.
Five companies received a first round of permits last year when the fisheries office of the National Oceanic and Atmoshperic Administration issued permits that would allow for the incidental harassment of marine mammals with air gun blasts in a region of the Atlantic from Delaware to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The last time seismic surveys were completed in the Atlantic was in the 1980s. The Obama administration banned seismic testing permits there in 2016 after it removed the Atlantic coasts from drilling in its five-year OCS proposal.
Gail Adams-Jackson, spokeswoman for the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, a trade group representing seismic testing companies, said its members “remain hopeful” that BOEM will issue seismic testing permits soon - even if it remains unclear whether the Trump administration will pursue its plans to expand offshore drilling in the Atlantic.
“The more data that our government has to make informed decisions, the better off our country is in terms of our energy future,” she said.
A federal district court judge in Charleston, South Carolina, asked the Interior Department on Monday to update him on the status of BOEM’s seismic survey permit process. The South Carolina Republican attorney general and conservation groups including the Southern Environmental Law Center, filed a motion in that court earlier this year seeking an injunction to block BOEM from issuing final seismic testing permits.
“It makes no sense to proceed with seismic testing now. It’s exposing our resources to very significant harm for no reason, when no one wants drilling or seismic here,” said Catherine Wannamaker, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-offshore-idUSKCN1S526M
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N.Y. Bans Offshore Drilling in Effort to Prevent Trump Expansion
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Keshia Clukey
New York State has banned offshore oil and natural gas drilling along its Atlantic coastal waters in an effort to block a Trump administration proposal.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed legislation (A.2572/S.2316) on April 29 that bars state agencies from granting permits for drilling or oil or gas exploration on state-owned underwater coastal lands, his office announced. The law, effective immediately, also prohibits the leasing of land that would lead to an the increase of oil or natural gas production from federal waters, according to the measure.
The legislation, passed by the state Senate and Assembly in February, is in response to the Trump administration’s plans to expand offshore drilling off most U.S. coastal waters.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in an April 25 Wall Street Journal article said those plans may be on hold indefinitely after a federal ruling upheld an Obama-era ban on drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
The drilling plan has received pushback from officials in several states, with California, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Oregon enacting laws blocking expansion of federal oil and gas leasing off their shores, according to the announcement. Other states have introduced similar measures including Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island and South Carolina.
“This bill says no way are you going to drill off the coast of Long Island and New York, because we must lead the way as an alternative to what this federal government is doing,” Cuomo said.
Major spills related to offshore drilling could would have a devastating effect on the operation of the Port of New York and New Jersey—the largest on the Atlantic seaboard, according to the release.
The legislation in New York would shield the state’s 1,850 miles of tidal shoreline and protect endangered and threatened species such as the North Atlantic right whale, as well as the state’s recreational and commercial fishing industries, according to the measure.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/n-y-bans-offshore-drilling-in-effort-to-prevent-trump-expansion
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Chaco Canyon Oil and Gas Leases Blocked on New Mexico State Land
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brenna Goth
New Mexico is halting new oil and gas leases on nearly 73,000 acres of state land near Chaco Canyon, a hub of archaeological sites in the northwestern part of the state.
The moratorium signed April 27 by State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard aims to “safeguard archaeological and cultural resources” through 2023 in an area sacred to many tribes for the ancestral sites there.
The move follows federal legislation (S. 1079) introduced this month to permanently withdraw federal land in the area from mineral development.
Supportive environmental and tribal groups hailed Garcia Richard’s executive order as a step to protect significant sites and resources that fall outside of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park. But representatives of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association said taking land off the table for development harms investment in the area.
Opposition from Oil and Gas Industry
The state trust land that falls under Garcia Richard’s executive order is located in a buffer zone surrounding the historical park. Land in the area forms a checkerboard of ownership including private and federal entities.
Proponents of federal legislation want to permanently exclude a roughly 10-mile radius outside the park from new oil and gas development. That bill, called the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act, recognizes “that some places are just too special to lose,” Sen. Tom Udall (D) said in a statement.
A permanent mineral withdrawal is a bold vision that will take time, said Mark Allison, executive director of conservation nonprofit New Mexico Wild. Garcia Richard’s moratorium immediately protects state land in an area already heavily developed, he said.
“Those trust lands were very much in play,” Allison said.
The federal Bureau of Land Management owns more land in the area than the state, which makes the executive order less impactful than the proposed federal legislation, said Robert McEntyre, spokesman for the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association.
The association opposes the permanent 10-mile buffer zone it argues is unnecessary based on existing protections for cultural and archaeological resources.
Still, removing state land from development increases the cost of doing business in the region, McEntyre said. The industry already safety operates near the park and takes care not to disrupt important resources, he said.
“I think there’s a balance there that we can still achieve,” McEntyre said.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/chaco-canyon-oil-and-gas-leases-blocked-on-new-mexico-state-land
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Support Us Energy Trade by Approving USMCA
Apr 29, 2019 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Mark Green
Winning on trade looks like this:
· 12 million U.S. jobs supported in all 50 states
· Commerce with neighbors Mexico and Canada was nearly $1.3 trillion in 2017 – four times what it was 25 years ago
· In the energy space, trade helps the U.S. natural gas and oil industry, which supports 10.3 million jobs – many of which exist thanks to free North American trade
For these reasons and more, Congress should approve the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). From an energy standpoint, the case for USMCA approval is strong.
This agreement – as NAFTA did before – would support U.S. natural gas and oil (see here and here) by fostering a fair, level playing field for record-setting U.S. energy exports which support domestic natural gas and oil development and jobs while benefiting consumers and the economy. A recent United States International Trade Commission report estimates USMCA could increase U.S. real GDP by $68.2 billion and employment by 176,000 jobs.
More to the point, trade with Mexico and Canada has been great for U.S. energy. Mexico is the No. 1 market for U.S. exports of gasoline, fuel oil and total refined products. Canada is No. 1 market for U.S. exports of crude oil and fuel blending components. These exports represent viable markets for U.S. products, spurring more production and economic benefits here at home.
Writing for the Washington Examiner, Aaron Padilla, API senior adviser for international policy, notes that increased demand stemming from trade generates economic activity beyond the natural gas and oil industry itself. “Infrastructure construction is just one example,” Padilla writes. “U.S. pipeline capacity to export natural gas to Mexico’s rapidly growing market nearly doubled since 2015.”
Trade and markets play an important role in sustaining and growing the United States’ global energy leadership – leadership that has made this nation more secure, helped U.S. households with their budgets and make progress toward important environmental and climate goals.
That progress would be hindered without market access and trade protections that would be provided by USMCA. The agreement will help the U.S. energy revolution moving forward:
Approving USMCA is an important step toward a winning trade approach for the United States, particularly in the energy space. Another would be ending the administration’s counterproductive tariffs, including those on imported steel, which have impacted our industry and could affect consumers.
“Finalizing USMCA is a prime opportunity to jettison the self-defeating tariffs,” Padilla writes. “Instead, the Trump administration is considering replacing tariffs with even worse restrictions: quotas. Where tariffs raise costs for essential supplies, quotas cut off the supply entirely once a pre-determined limit is reached.”
Think of it in terms of getting a replacement part to fix your car, Padilla writes. “Tariffs mean you can get the part, but it’ll cost 25 percent more. Quotas mean you may have to wait a year for the part, with no alternatives. Multiply that experience across the U.S. economy and you’ll get an idea of how steel quotas can gum up the works – by bringing construction projects to build new chemical plants and pipelines to a screeching halt.”
As the world’s leading natural gas and oil producer and know how trade helps sustain and grow that production, the U.S. should be playing a winning hand on trade. Congress should approve USMCA, and the administration should end tariffs and quotas that hinder the country’s energy sector.
Mark Green is the editor of Energy Tomorrow of the American Petroleum Institute.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/440762-support-us-energy-trade-by-approving-usmca
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Ethane Storage Seen as Key to Revitalization of Appalachia
Apr 30, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)
By Mark Gillispie
Plans are underway in Appalachia to create two underground facilities to store ethane, a byproduct of natural gas drilling seen as integral to revitalizing a region still struggling from the loss of industrial and manufacturing jobs decades ago.
Experts say the availability of storage facilities will help the tri-state region of eastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia attract petrochemical plants that turn ethane into raw plastic and, the hope is, attract manufacturing companies to make products ubiquitous to modern life.
Energy Storage Ventures is awaiting approval of state permits to construct an underground facility to store ethane and other natural gas liquids, said David Hooker, the Colorado-based company's president.
Meanwhile, Appalachia Development Group in Charleston, W.Va., wants to build a much larger storage facility somewhere in the tri-state region. Company President and CEO Steven Hedrick said the creation of a petrochemical and plastics industry could lead to billions of dollars in investment and tens of thousands of jobs in the coming years.
"The people of Appalachia deserve this opportunity," Hedrick said.
Technological advances in hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, have helped fuel an oil and gas boom in Appalachia and Southwestern states like Texas. It has also provided an abundant supply of ethane that is driving the expansion of the petrochemical industry in its epicenter along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, where most ethane storage also is located.
Ethane is a gas when brought to the surface along with methane, the far more abundant "dry" natural gas used to cook our food and heat our homes. Ethane is colorless, odorless and, like methane, highly combustible. It becomes a liquid when supercooled at processing plants called fractionators that separate out other natural gas liquids. While most ethane produced today is shipped out of the region via pipelines, a portion is "rejected" and winds up in the natural gas stream.
"Cooking eggs with ethane in the morning is like cooking eggs with hundred-dollar bills," Hedrick said, paraphrasing Energy Secretary Rick Perry. "It gets the job done, but it doesn't make sense."
Industry experts say there is enough potential ethane production in Appalachia's Utica and Marcellus shale fields to supply four or five petrochemical plants in the region. They also say underground storage is vital to providing an uninterrupted supply to those plants.
"When you look at the ethane market that is developing, I just can't imagine those plants operating without storage in that market," Energy Storage Ventures' Hooker said.
Energy Storage Ventures' subsidiary, Mountaineer NGL Storage, hopes to begin construction along the Ohio River as early as this summer. Hooker said initial plans call for building a facility capable of storing 1.5 million barrels of natural gas liquids, primarily ethane but also propane and butane. The company will use fresh water to carve out space in a salt formation more than 6,500 feet underground. Resulting brine water from construction will be transported across the Ohio River via pipeline for use at an alkaline plant in West Virginia, Hooker said.
Appalachia Development Group is considering sites in the region for its Appalachia Storage and Trading Hub, which Hedrick said would be capable of storing 10 million barrels of natural gas liquids.
Hooker said the cost of his project is estimated at $150 million and is fully financed. The estimated cost of Appalachia Development Group's storage facility is $3.4 billion, which Hedrick attributes to aboveground expenses, such as building pipelines.
Appalachia Development Group is seeking $1.9 billion in federal loan guarantees for its project.
The first signs of the emergent ethane petrochemical industry are clearly visible northwest of Pittsburgh, near Monaca, Pa., where thousands of workers are building an ethane "cracker" plant for Royal Dutch Shell capable of producing 1.6 million tons of raw plastic annually. The plant's ethane supply will come from Shell's own pipeline system connected to processing facilities in Ohio and Pennsylvania, negating the need for bulk storage.
Petrochemical plants without those resources will need ready access to ethane stored underground, according to experts. That includes a much-anticipated cracker plant for ethane conversion that a partnership between two Asian companies is considering building in eastern Ohio's Belmont County. The partnership between Thailand's PTT Global Chemical and South Korea's Daelim Industrial has received clean air and water permits from the state but hasn't fully committed to construction, despite having already spent more than $100 million on planning, according to partnership spokesman Dan Williamson.
Industry analysts and backers of the two storage hubs say the availability of ethane storage and the decision whether to build the plant are intertwined.
"To me, the key is PTT Global," Hooker said, adding that he "can't imagine" the plant operating without ethane storage. He said he's had conversations with PTT-Daelim.
Appalachia Development Group's Hedrick agrees with Hooker's assessment. Without the PTT-Daelim partnership or another regional petrochemical plant, Hedrick said, his storage facility project probably won't be viable.
"The two go hand in glove," Hedrick said. "We need both at the same time. Without customers, it's awfully hard to make a business case."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/04/30/stories/1060241751
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Charges Filed After Fire at Texas Petrochemical Facility
Apr 30, 2019 | AP (In The New York Times)
Water pollution charges were filed Monday against a company that owns a Houston-area petrochemical storage facility where a large fire that burned for days in March caused chemicals to flow into a nearby waterway.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office announced it filed five environmental misdemeanor charges against Intercontinental Terminals Company.
Prosecutors allege following the March 17 fire, a dam at the facility broke, sending large quantities of toxic chemicals, including xylene and benzene, into nearby Tucker Bayou, which flows into Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, said Tom Berg, first assistant district attorney for Harris County.
"We support the petrochemical industry. It's the life blood of the Houston area, and by and large, our corporate, industrial friends are responsible," Berg said. "They take great care in safety and environmental concerns. But when they're failures, those folks need to be held accountable and this company in particular has had a history of environmental violations. So we're not inclined to look the other way."
f convicted, ITC could be fined up to $100,000 for each charge.
Berg said the investigation is ongoing and additional charges could be filed.
Michael Goldberg, an attorney for ITC, said he and his client had not seen the charges. Nevertheless, "there is no question that there was a large fire and an enormous effort to extinguish it which resulted in a discharge into Tucker Bayou," he said in a statement.
The Deer Park facility, located southeast of Houston, caught fire March 17 and burned until March 20, sending waves of thick, black smoke thousands of feet into the air and forcing the closure of roads and schools. The water pollution took place through March 21, Berg said.
Air monitors on March 21 detected elevated levels of benzene in the air, prompting public officials to order people living in the area to remain indoors for several hours.
The next day, a dike failed adjacent to the tank farm, allowing flammable chemicals to seep into nearby bayous and then into the Houston Ship channel, which partially closed during the cleanup efforts . The ship channel is a critical commercial waterway that connects oil refineries in the Houston area between the Port of Houston and the Gulf of Mexico.
The tanks at ITC contained components of gasoline and materials used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner.
"People living in Deer Park and the other neighboring residential areas near ITC's plant deserve protection too," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. "When public health is at risk, it's a public safety concern."
Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against ITC, saying the state must hold the company "accountable for the damage it has done to our environment."
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/04/29/us/ap-us-petrochemical-fire-texas.html?searchResultPosition=9
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Corning, Philips Won’t Face Toxic Tort Emotional Distress Claims
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Corning Inc. won dismissal of claims for emotional distress by children living near a former glass manufacturing plant who say they are at increased risk of developing disease from toxic substances emanating from the site.
Under Kentucky law, a plaintiff can’t pursue a claim for the possibility of future injury, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky said.
The claims are barred absent any showing of a present physical injury, the court said.
Corning constructed and operated the Danville, Ky., glass manufacturing facility in 1952 and operated it until 1983, followed by Philips Electronics North America.
The case involves approximately 90 plaintiffs alleging personal injury or property damage stemming from the release of lead, arsenic, and Trichlorethylene to the community, contaminating the plaintiffs’ water, soil, vegetation, air, land, and dwellings.
The ruling doesn’t impact the bulk of those claims.
The plaintiffs also allege that the companies exposed the community to lead, arsenic, and TCE by allowing the development of a little league ballfield on top of a dumping area for slag and glass pellets located on the facility’s grounds.
This ballfield is contaminated by excessively high levels of lead and arsenic to this day, the complaint alleges.
The court earlier denied the plaintiffs’ request for class certification.
Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove issued the opinion.
The Getty Law Group, PLLC represents the plaintiffs.
Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP represents Corning.
The case is Modern Holdings, LLC v. Corning, Inc., 2019 BL 150154, E.D. Ky., No.13-cv-00405, 4/26/19.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/corning-philips-wont-face-toxic-tort-emotional-distress-claims
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Emp Attack Could Cause Crippling Blackouts — Report
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
Researchers studying the impacts of a nuclear weapon detonation in the atmosphere warned yesterday that shock waves from the explosion could potentially cause a paralyzing multistate blackout unless grid operators harden thousands of digital controls that manage power flows across their networks.
The Electric Power Research Institute released its final report from a three-year industry-funded investigation of impacts from a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon's detonation, conducted at its laboratory here and another in Knoxville, Tenn.
EPRI researchers also tested and proposed ways of protecting digital relays from the instantaneous surge of high-voltage energy from a nuclear blast and strategies for shielding substation control buildings that house the relays.
The critical question left unresolved in the report is how fast and fully could grid operators bring the power back on if thousands of crucial relays had been short-circuited and ruined by an EMP surge. At a briefing here yesterday, EPRI officials said the issue could not be answered with certainty, given the unpredictable impacts of an EMP blast.
"That is one we don't have an answer for," said Randy Horton, the EPRI senior program manager who headed the project.
The report said recovery "would be expected to be commensurate with historical large-scale blackouts" if EMP protections are installed to minimize damage to recovery equipment and operations.
"Until the transmission system is appropriately hardened" against the potential impacts of an EMP, a resulting blackout "may present challenges that have not been experienced following blackouts from more traditional causes," the report said in the understated terms used throughout the report.
"It's not going to be the really long one," Horton said, meaning a yearlong doomsday that some EMP policy advocates warn of. The outage also "is not going to be what it would typically be, which might be days," he said.
"We want it down to days," said EPRI President Michael Howard.
The report is the most detailed unclassified examination of EMP damage to transmission grid relays to date. It arrives in the midst of a growing debate about the level of grid protections required against an extreme but currently remote threat and whether power company defenses against the threat should be federally mandated or left to individual grid operators.
The answers are likely to lie in the White House. Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Council to coordinate development of national policy to deal with an EMP threat (Energywire, April 8).
The damage to relays and other electronics stems from the fastest of three different EMP shock waves, called the E1 surge. A second pulse resembles lightning, against which grid networks are already protected. The "slow" E3 wave would travel along transmission lines to substations, entering unprotected transformers and causing potential overheating.'Junk science'?
In this report, EPRI revised an earlier analysis that concluded that no more than 14 transformers nationwide would be overheated to the failure point, saying the top number now is 21. EMP policy advocates contend the damage would be much greater and longer-lasting.
Yesterday, two of those advocates condemned EPRI's report as "junk science" even before its release.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey issued a statement yesterday saying, "As it has for many years, the latest EPRI 'research' closely hews to the industry line that downplays the need to protect the assets that make up the grid."
Without mentioning critics by name, Howard said EPRI's research separate facts "from science fiction."
EPRI's report concluded that the multiple shocks to the grid from an EMP attack would cause a fast-moving blackout taking down power in large regions covering as many as a half-dozen states.
The EPRI researchers calculated impacts of shock waves of two different intensities, saying the more likely one could cause "moderate" damage, disabling or destroying 5% of substations that anchor segments of high-voltage lines running about 50 miles. The larger strike it modeled would be "more severe," affecting 15% of transmission terminal substation relays.
The impact model was prepared by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, EPRI said. The project was also assisted by experts from the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The report paints a more chilling picture of possible consequences from an EMP attack, with potential collateral damage going far beyond the specific risks it studied.
The blast waves could destroy digital controls on power generators and damage emergency communications networks that repair crews depend on, lengthening recovery efforts. SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems in control rooms could be lost, it said. The fast-expanding use of digital controls in microgrids, wind farms and solar installations, and "smart meters" may extend EMP vulnerabilities unless those systems are protected, too, the report said.
Horton said a key finding from the research is that relays inside well-shielded substation control houses held up well against the EMP attack it modeled. The "conducted" EMP pulses carried by wires from the substation are dangerous but can be handled with relatively inexpensive surge protection, EPRI found.
Black Start defense
Recovery from a massive outage depends crucially on precise Black Start power restoration plans that each utility must develop and periodically test. Engineers would draw power from undamaged emergency generators and hydropower plants and use that energy to restart large generators, sending power down preselected "cranking path" lines to bring the grid back piece by piece.
Power supply and demand must be kept precisely in balance at each step to avoid knocking the system down again. Power would go first to top-priority needs including nuclear plants, critical defense installations and urban centers.
An EMP attack could likely ruin some emergency generation and power line operators counted on for Black Start recovery. Repair teams, operating with damaged or degraded communications to control centers, would have to find out what parts of the system had survived before beginning replacements.
In more of the restrained language that characterized the report, EPRI said that existing step-by-step Black Start recovery plans may not work "due to the possibility of widespread unavailable, inoperable, or damaged equipment and impaired situational awareness. Thus, developing alternative plans that consider the potential impacts that [a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse], and in particular E1 EMP, can have on the transmission system may be worthwhile."
The EIS Council, a nonprofit research group analyzing extreme grid threats, has advocated starting EMP defensive campaigns by hardening Black Start equipment and pathways.
"A limited, targeted set of investments in equipment hardening can have enormous benefits for strengthening the power grid's resilience against E-threats," the EIS Council's handbook advises. The protection should cover relays, control rooms and critical transformers that are most vital to population sustainment and avoidance of unplanned forced migration from cities, the council says.
Howard said he believed that will be an early result from the EPRI research. "There will be some substations that are more critical than others," Howard said, "because they are serving [customer] loads that are very, very important. ... I think the industry will identify what are the highest-priority substations."
To simulate the impacts from the explosion of a 1-megaton nuclear bomb about 150 miles above Kansas City, Mo., EPRI investigated two separate shock wave impacts on relays. The surges could flood relays directly with damaging radiation or send power spikes into the relays via cables that link relays to substation equipment.
To mimic direct blast effects, the researchers hit production model digital relays with up to 80,000 volts of electricity directly and exposed cables connected to relays.
EPRI found that some relays withstood the tests much better than others but didn't identity the poorer performers. "For security reasons, names of specific manufacturers and models are not provided," the report said. Disclosure is also limited by confidentiality agreements with utilities that supplied the relays for the tests. EPRI officials said they didn't know how this information would be shared within the industry, because the research belongs to the 63 utilities that funded the project.
EPRI's Howard said the institute will move now to testing EMP blast effects on generators.
Howard said EPRI also hopes the research results and impact models it has developed will help other critical infrastructure sectors define survival strategies for their systems.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/04/30/stories/1060243293
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Democrats Press Trump on 'Clean Energy and Resiliency'
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Maxine Joselow
President Trump is set to meet with Democratic leadership today about infrastructure legislation, as questions swirl over funding options and climate change components of the bill.
The high-profile meeting will take place at the White House and will involve Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), among other Democratic lawmakers invested in the issue.
Schumer and Pelosi sent the White House a letter yesterday calling for bipartisan cooperation on a broad infrastructure package that addresses a variety of issues, rather than a narrower surface transportation bill that only addresses roads and bridges.
The pair stressed that the package must include climate change components, echoing an earlier call from Schumer (E&E Daily, Dec. 7, 2018).
"A big and bold infrastructure package must be comprehensive and include clean energy and resiliency priorities," the pair wrote.
"To truly be a gamechanger for the American people, we should go beyond transportation and into broadband, water, energy, schools, housing and other initiatives," they added. "We must also invest in resiliency and risk mitigation of our current infrastructure to deal with climate change."
That suggestion is music to the ears of environmentalists, who have called for rebuilding infrastructure in a more resilient fashion to withstand the effects of more frequent extreme weather events fueled by climate change.
But it could lead to friction with Republicans, some of whom have lobbed criticism at Democrat-led climate measures.
For instance, Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), ranking member on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, has said the Green New Deal resolution is something out of a "fairy tale."
Growing price tag
In a notable omission, Schumer and Pelosi did not mention a price tag for an infrastructure bill in their letter, although many Democrats view $1 trillion as a starting point.
Trump, on the other hand, has said he wants to spend $2 trillion on infrastructure. The president made the comments to Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, at last month's St. Patrick's Day lunch in the Capitol, Axios reported over the weekend.
Many observers have viewed those comments with intense skepticism. Trump's fiscal 2020 budget request only called for spending $200 billion on infrastructure (E&E News PM, March 11).
And the administration's infrastructure plan released last year called for leveraging a modest amount of government spending to attract much larger investment from the private sector.
Today's meeting also comes amid broad disagreement on Capitol Hill over how to actually pay for an infrastructure bill. One funding option under consideration is raising the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon, which hasn't been increased since 1993.
Trump surprised lawmakers last year by privately backing a 25-cent increase in the gas tax (E&E News PM, Feb. 14, 2018). But he has never publicly endorsed the idea, which would provide political cover for hesitant Republicans.
Meanwhile, a source close to Schumer told The Washington Post that the top Senate Democrat thinks a gas tax hike would disproportionately burden the working class and that it should not be considered unless Trump rolls back part of the 2017 tax cuts for corporations and wealthy Americans.
A top official with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supports a gas tax hike, said Schumer's stance would stymie progress.
"Trying to relitigate other fights such as the tax reform bill isn't going to help us get to the solution," Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer with the Chamber, said on a call with reporters yesterday.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which will help identify revenue sources for an infrastructure bill, said he agrees with Schumer.
“Working people shouldn’t take another big financial hit in order to be able to get to work and take care of essentials, and particularly not when the big multinational companies, which are causing most of the wear and tear to the infrastructure, got all these big tax breaks," Wyden told reporters.
"So we’ve made it clear what our core principles are, and we’ll see how the president responds.
"'Positive outcome'
Other lawmakers invited to today's meeting include Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tom Carper of Delaware, Patty Murray of Washington and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, as well as Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, according to the Post.
DeFazio is chairman of the T&I Committee, which is working on drafting language for an infrastructure bill. The goal is to bring the measure to the House floor by May or June.
"I am in discussions with my leadership in advance of this meeting and I am hopeful that the talks next week will be productive, and a catalyst for the robust infrastructure investment we desperately need and to which I'm deeply committed to enacting," DeFazio said in an emailed statement to E&E News.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he hopes the meeting produces progress toward a sustainable funding option that doesn't add to the national debt.
"How are they going to pay for it? You got to have an infrastructure package. We have all talked about that. There has to be a vehicle, and there has to be revenue coming into the vehicle," Manchin said yesterday at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association legislative conference.
"Someone has to sit down and get serious about this, really serious about this," he added. "Just saying we are going to do it and just start creating more debt, that's not a responsible way to do it. We can fix it, but it has to be a high priority. I think it is, and at least they are talking about it at this level."
Hoyer said at the NRECA conference that the United States risks losing its global competitiveness if it doesn't repair its aging roads and bridges.
"We know if we do not do that we will not be competitive in the 21st century because we know that both Europe and China and other nations are making substantial investments in infrastructure," Hoyer said.
"I'm going to being pushing for a positive outcome so that we can move ahead in a bipartisan way to invest in our infrastructure, not just roads and bridges, although roads and bridges certainly are one of those, but also seaports, airports, water and sewer, and the grid."
Reporters Kellie Lunney, Geof Koss and Jeremy Dillon contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/04/30/stories/1060242513
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North Dakota Congressional Delegation Urges Veto of Washington Oil Train Legislation
Apr 30, 2019 | Bismark Tribune
By Amy Dalrymple
North Dakota’s congressional delegation is urging the governor of Washington state to veto legislation they say would result in a “de facto ban” of crude-by-rail traffic from the Bakken.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong and Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer, all Republicans, wrote a letter to Gov. Jay Inslee about a bill approved by Washington legislators that would reduce the volatility of crude oil shipped by rail.
The bill prohibits refineries and other facilities from unloading oil from a rail car unless the oil has a vapor pressure of less than 9 pounds per square inch, a lower limit than what North Dakota requires.
Members of the delegation argue the legislation would do little to make rail transportation to Washington refineries safer.
“(The bill) relies on an unscientific understanding of crude-by-rail transportation and, according to current science, would not improve safety of workers or those along rail lines,” they wrote in a letter dated Friday, April 26.
Inslee, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, received the bill Thursday, April 25. He has 20 days to take action, said governor spokeswoman Tara Lee, adding she does not know how he intends to act.
Inslee has made climate change a focus of his campaign for president, including pledging to not take campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies.
Washington legislators who sponsored the bill say it’s aimed at protecting communities from fiery train derailments by reducing the risk of shipping Bakken crude.
Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, the primary sponsor of the bill, has criticized the federal government for not adopting a nationwide vapor pressure standard for crude oil shipped by rail.
“If the federal government won’t act to protect public safety and adopt a safer nationwide standard, we will adopt our own,” Billig said in a statement in March. “There is just too much to lose — for people and our environment.”
North Dakota regulations that took effect in 2015 require companies to remove the most volatile gases from Bakken crude oil and keep the vapor pressure at no more than 13.7 pounds per square inch.
Lynn Helms, North Dakota’s top oil regulator, testified to Washington legislators that there is no scientific basis to support a vapor pressure limit of 9 psi. Helms encouraged lawmakers to wait for the results of an ongoing Sandia National Laboratories study.
North Dakota ships about 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day by rail to refineries in Washington.
The final bill as amended would prohibit any new facility from loading or unloading crude oil from a rail car unless the oil has a vapor pressure of less than 9 psi. Existing facilities that expand crude oil volumes would have to adhere to the new limit within two years of the expansion. Failing to meet the standard could lead to fines of up to $2,500 per day per rail car.
Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said the industry continues to oppose the bill as amended.
“Ultimately, this bill is not in line with interstate commerce law, and it’s going to be litigated,” Cutting said. “We believe that litigation will prevail against the state of Washington.”
The North Dakota Industrial Commission, a three-member board led by Gov. Doug Burgum, is scheduled to meet in a closed executive session on Tuesday to discuss a potential lawsuit against Washington.
North Dakota’s delegation also emphasized in the letter to Inslee that the legislation “oversteps its legal boundaries,” writing that the federal government has authority to regulate the shipment of hazardous materials by rail.
“While the state of Washington does have certain authority to legislate on health and safety issues, this bill does not offer a sound basis for doing so,” they wrote.
https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/government-and-politics/4605750-north-dakota-congressional-delegation-urges-veto-washington-oil
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White House Threatens Veto for House Paris Climate Bill
Apr 30, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Anthony Adragna
President Donald Trump's advisers would recommend he veto legislation H.R. 9 (116) barring the U.S. from withdrawing from the Paris climate accord should it reach his desk, according to a statement of administration policy.
"H.R. 9 is inconsistent with the President’s commitment to put American workers and families first, promote access to affordable, reliable energy sources and technologies, and improve the quality of life for all Americans," the statement reads. "H.R. 9 would also interfere with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations, including the authority to withdraw from an executive agreement."
Trump announced his intention to leave the landmark climate accord in June 2017, but cannot formally do so until November 2020.
The House Rules Committee this evening is considering what amendments will be debated along with the measure on the floor later this week. The bill is expected to pass the House, but is unlikely to come up for a vote in the Senate.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/04/white-house-threatens-veto-for-house-paris-climate-bill-3159837
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House GOP Starts Uphill Push This Week for Green Deal Vote (1)
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker
House Republicans will begin an effort May 1 to collect signatures to bring the Green New Deal resolution for a floor vote, according to House Minority Whip Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) office.
The discharge petition, led by Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), will require 218 signatures for leadership to bypass the committee process and take up the measure for a vote, Scalise spokeswoman Lauren Fine said in an email. For it to move forward, at least 21 Democrats would need to sign the petition alongside all House Republicans—an unlikely feat.
The Green New Deal resolution (H.Res. 109) was introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) in February and has 92 Democratic cosponsors.
Republicans want the House to vote on the Green New Deal resolution to get lawmakers’ support or opposition on the record.
“The American people deserve to know where their Member of Congress stand on such a radical policy,” Hice said on Twitter in February.
Democrats, however, say the move is intended only to score political points. Many of them say broadly addressing a subject as complicated as climate change deserves a more deliberative debate.
The Senate voted 0-57 against a similar resolution from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) March 26, with 43 Democrats voting “present.” All Republicans voted against it, with three Democrats—Doug Jones of Alabama, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona— and Independent Sen. Angus King joining the GOP.
The GOP’s move comes as Democrats move H.R. 9, a bill to force the Trump administration to remain in the international Paris agreement, to the floor this week.
The GOP has criticized the Green New Deal measure because it calls for large-scale government intervention in the energy sector. The resolution lays out a plan to phase out fossil fuel emissions over the next decade.
(Adjusts lead paragraph to reflect House Republicans' decision to move action to May 1.)
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/house-gop-starts-uphill-push-this-week-for-green-new-deal-vote
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Ex-Trump Aide Who Backed Paris Accord Said to Join House Panel
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter
A former White House environmental adviser who fought to keep the U.S. in a global pact to slash greenhouse gas emissions is joining the Republican staff of a House climate change committee, one of two appointments signaling the party’s shift in strategy on the issue.
George David Banks, the former adviser to President Donald Trump, will serve as a chief strategist for Republicans, handling policy and communications on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. And the committee’s new Republican staff director will be Marty Hall, a onetime environmental aide to former President George W. Bush who now works for ClearPath Foundation, a conservative group that advocates for clean energy.
The appointments were described by two people familiar with the moves who asked for anonymity to discuss the personnel matter.
The hires show Republicans are feeling pressure to treat global warming seriously and could signal a more centrist approach. Some Republicans have already pivoted on the issue and begun advancing proposals to mitigate climate change, amid growing public alarm about the Earth’s rising temperatures and pressure from Democrats, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to aggressively cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Banks has a history treading middle ground on climate, including during his tenure on the National Economic Council serving as a special assistant to the president for international energy and environmental policy issues.
Banks played a leading role in a failed bid to persuade Trump to keep the U.S. in the Paris agreement, a global pact to throttle carbon dioxide emissions that drive climate change. Although the U.S. cannot formally exit the accord until 2020, Trump announced in June 2017 he’d be pulling out of the deal. Banks resigned early the next year.
ClearPath has played a behind-the-scenes role advising Republicans on how to address climate change, encouraging a focus on spurring innovation and technological solutions.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/ex-trump-aide-who-backed-paris-accord-said-to-join-house-panel-8-9
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Green New Deal Isn't Going Away
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk
Congress can't seem to escape the Green New Deal.
More than two weeks after the Senate rejected the progressive climate policy outline — and more than two months after the nonbinding resolution was originally introduced — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was on the floor talking about it.
His speech just before Congress left town for a two-week recess only underscored what has been apparent for months now: The Green New Deal is a 2020 presidential issue, and Republicans are likely to continue blasting it for the sake of messaging.
While the Senate vote is over, the Green New Deal will likely permeate every climate debate in the near future, even in the few pockets of Capitol Hill where climate change isn't so partisan anymore.
McConnell even conceded on Fox News earlier this month that the Green New Deal tally last month was a "show vote," despite his past complaints about wasting the Senate's time.
"It was," McConnell told Fox News host Bret Baier. "I don't intend to spend all of our time doing that sort of thing, but once in a while people ought to go on record and decide whether they're willing to vote for what they say they're for."
Democrats have responded in kind by questioning why Republicans have ignored climate change for nearly a decade and why much of their caucus still denies or ignores the science.
And they may have scored a political win in the sense that the Senate is debating climate change for the first time since Democrats were in control, and Republicans have been asked repeatedly by reporters in recent weeks whether they believe in climate change and what they plan to do about it.
"I just don't think the game right now is playing 'Mother May I' with Mitch McConnell," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) recently told reporters. "We have to win this argument, and the public is behind us, and whether it's a renewable portfolio standard, or keep it in the ground, or a Green New Deal, or a carbon fee, we have to take bold action that is equal to the moment."
But for the GOP, it's a simple political calculus. Six Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed the Green New Deal resolution, and Republicans think Democrats generally are tied to the plan.
Just as Republicans have long panned any Democratic health care reform proposal as "socialized medicine," they have warned the Green New Deal is "socialism" and launched a series of misleading attacks on the resolution, aimed in part at linking it to the broader suite of Democratic policies.
"You had a senator that is running for president outside the Capitol building on the same day the vote was held, holding a rally in favor of the Green New Deal," Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who led parts of the Green New Deal debate on the floor, said in a recent interview.
He was referring to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a 2020 candidate who joined lead sponsor Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and activists from the Sunrise Movement outside the Capitol for a rally and news conference the morning before the vote.
"Now, she came in here and voted 'present,' so you talk about hypocrisy, that's certainly part of it," Barrasso added. "But she's still promoting this, and if that's her plan for America, I'm going to continue to fight and oppose this kind of plan."
The attitude is much the same on the House side, where Republicans have called attention to the Green New Deal and probed witnesses at hearings about how much it would cost.
They GOP likes to showcase Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a self described democratic socialist and one of the Green New Deal's authors, as an example of how the Democrats have moved too far left.
The Energy and Commerce Committee appears to have reached a bipartisan consensus that climate change is real and worth addressing, even if Republicans reject the large policy proposals that scientists and Democrats say will be needed.
But ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) has repeatedly called for the panel to have a hearing on the Green New Deal, most recently during the markup of H.R. 9, the Democratic bill to keep the United States in the Paris Agreement that's due for a floor vote this week.
At a House Oversight and Reform hearing earlier this month, ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) opened by saying he thought the hearing was really "about the Green New Deal."
It wasn't, but that didn't stop Republicans from talking about it and probing former Secretary of State John Kerry and former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel about the proposal, which neither had anything to do with.
"Ninety-one co-sponsors, every major Democrat presidential candidate has endorsed it, 13 senators, so I assume it will be talked about," Jordan, a prominent member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, later told reporters. "But of course, on the other side, when it was brought up for a vote, not one single person would vote for it."
'Whistling past the graveyard'
Many Senate Democrats, indeed, are not chomping at the bit to talk about the Green New Deal after a vote in which they were forced to stay unified by voting "present," though it's a topic on the campaign trail.
Still, from their perspective, the vote has had obvious ripple effects that have allowed them to begin building a policy consensus.
Shortly before the vote, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) suggested a "New Manhattan Project" for clean energy, which proposes to double Department of Energy research spending.
Barrasso said he's talked to Alexander about it and is interested, as is Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
That and other "energy innovation" proposals likely would not be enough to decarbonize the energy sector in line with the most recent U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which recommends net-zero emissions by 2050 to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels.
But Democrats say they're talking to Republicans about the issue now, even if the GOP is still miles away from supporting a broader effort, such as a carbon tax.
"I think the obvious answer is they're not there yet," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told reporters. "I think as a general proposition, you can clearly say that Republicans are a lot more nervous about this issue and where they are on it than they were even two years ago."
Murkowski's committee has now held two climate hearings, one of which featured extensive discussion of carbon pricing, and hardly any political stunts related to the Green New Deal.
"That's progress, and there is a lot of I would say bipartisan conversation about what are appropriate solutions now on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, for example," said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). "So we've moved from denialism to some flavor of delay, but I think there's more and more pressure to move from that to, OK, what can we agree on in terms of solutions?"
While there's more agreement on moderate action between the lines, Republicans clearly aren't done attacking the Green New Deal, nor are progressive activists done injecting it into the presidential conversation.
The Sunrise Movement, the progressive group that helped give the proposal prominence, is holding a series of town halls with organizers and Democratic politicians around the country, and several environmental groups have pushed to have a Democratic primary debate entirely about climate change.
In the most recent example of their influence, Sunrise and its cohort got Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), the fourth-ranking House Democrat, to endorse the Green New Deal in the lead-up to his 2020 Senate race.
On the other side, House Natural Resources ranking member Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who has been at the center of a couple of Green New Deal stunts, said he would gladly eat another hamburger as part of the GOP's attempt to show that the resolution would ban cows.
Bishop caused a stir last month when he said the Green New Deal is "tantamount to genocide." He then told reporters he is an "ethnic" because he is a "Westerner," comments he later described as "pure sarcasm."
"It won't get any better, but it will continue to be discussed," Bishop said of the Green New Deal.
Today, a group of House Republicans will introduce a discharge petition to force a vote similar to the Senate's. They are unlikely to get the 218 signatures necessary for it to succeed.
Schatz, a prominent climate hawk and participant in the recent Green New Deal debates, tamped down concerns that the GOP would simply use the resolution to blast Democrats on the campaign trail and in the Capitol Hill messaging war.
The other side, he said, is "going to make their dishonest ads no matter what you do."
The key, however, is to shoot high enough to both please activists and meet emission reductions laid out in the most recent science, Schatz said.
"If we treat this like we're trying to get an amendment to the defense authorization so that we can score a victory, then we're whistling past the graveyard," Schatz said.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/04/30/stories/1060242117
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In a Switch, Some Republicans Start Citing Climate Change as Driving Their Policies
Apr 30, 2019 | New York Times
By Lisa Friedman
When John Barrasso, a Republican from oil and uranium-rich Wyoming who has spent years blocking climate change legislation introduced a bill this year to promote nuclear energy, he added a twist: a desire to tackle global warming.
Mr. Barrasso’s remarks — “If we are serious about climate change, we must be serious about expanding our use of nuclear energy” — were hardly a clarion call to action. Still they were highly unusual for the lawmaker who, despite decades of support for nuclear power and other policies that would reduce planet-warming emissions, has until recently avoided talking about them in the context of climate change.
The comments represent an important shift among Republicans in Congress. Driven by polls showing that voters in both parties — particularly younger Americans — are increasingly concerned about a warming planet, and prodded by the new Democratic majority in the House shining a spotlight on the issue, a growing number of Republicans are now openly discussing climate change and proposing what they call conservative solutions.
“Denying the basic existence of climate change is no longer a credible position,” said Whit Ayers, a Republican political consultant, pointing out the growing climate concern among millennials as well as centrist voters — two groups the G.O.P. will need in the future.
It is at least partly opportunism, given that some lawmakers are simply reframing longstanding policies or priorities as “climate” policy. Still it is a significant shift, indicating that at least a few prominent Republicans see an advantage to breaking from right-wing orthodoxy that has long dismissed or openly derided concerns about the climate.
In recent weeks Senator John Cornyn of Texas — an oil state where climate denial runs deep — said he is helping write legislation to reduce emissions through “energy innovation.” Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said he wants to create a “Manhattan Project” for clean energy funding. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is exploring bipartisan plans to curb emissions from her position as chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. And Representative Matthew Gaetz of Florida, who once called to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, introduced legislation to tackle climate change by encouraging nuclear energy and hydropower, as well as “carbon capture” technology, which aims to pull planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
There are subtler signs of this G.O.P. shift as well. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis this year, Republican leaders tapped Representative Garret Graves of Louisiana as the panel’s ranking member. Though he hails from a region dependent on oil and gas, Mr. Graves has struck a bipartisan tone and made a point of noting the deleterious effect sea level rise will have on his state’s economy.
But Republicans also are walking a tightrope. In the Trump administration, G.O.P. party orthodoxy has shifted strongly toward denying or dismissing the threat of climate change. Veering away from it could cause a lawmaker to lose campaign contributions and key political support.
“There’s a hesitancy I think on the part of Republicans to jump into a major policy without getting the cues from elites within the party and society as a whole that they’re going in the right direction,” said Steven Valk, a spokesman for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which organizes to bring Republicans and Democrats together on market-based solutions to global warming.
In almost all of the cases in which conservative politicians are cautiously staking out territory on climate change, they still do not acknowledge the extent of man’s responsibility for causing it. Putting a price on emitting carbon into the atmosphere is verboten. And they insist solutions do not need to include eliminating or even curbing the use of oil, coal and other dirty energy sources primarily responsible for heating the planet.
“If we can find strategies that allow us to reduce emissions while continuing to use fossil fuels, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing,” Mr. Graves said in a recent interview.
Likewise, Representative Frank Lucas of Oklahoma won praise when he took over as the new top Republican on the House Science Committee this year, and said that climate change has intensified droughts and storms. But in an interview Mr. Lucas also said reducing the use of coal, oil and gas is not a solution.
“I don’t believe that you create mandates for fossil fuels,” he said. “But if we work hard, we can create the alternatives that will cause the market to move toward them.”
And Mr. Barrasso, even as he promotes nuclear and other policies that he frames as climate friendly, characterizes Democrats as taking “drastic” positions. “What began as a conversation about cleaner energy, has transformed into punishing global agreements, and now full government economic takeover,” he said in a statement.
The result, political analysts said, is a fitful conservative effort. It is heavily reliant on funding for clean energy research and development, but could yet result in meaningful legislative action given the right political alchemy.
“I would say there’s an emerging consensus that the climate conversation this time around is real, and the interest of the public has caught up with the interest of the experts,” said Scott Segal, a fossil fuel lobbyist in Washington. “You never know how lightning will strike. There’s even a possibility that you can have action in a presidential year, though it’s not a particularly high percentage.”
On Thursday, Republican positions on climate change will face a test when the House votes on a measure to block President Trump from withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, the landmark 2015 pact among nations to cut global warming emissions. President Trump has said he is abandoning the accord.
In many ways the G.O.P.’s swing follows poll results. A record number of Americans now accept that climate change is real and a serious threat, though Republicans and Democrats still disagree on the cause. And a survey last year by Yale and George Mason universities of 1,067 registered voters found that majorities in both parties do agree that the government must address the problem.
Among Republicans, younger voters in particular are more likely to embrace climate action.
A new Pew Research Center poll found more than a third of Millennial Republicans agree that Earth is “warming mostly due to human activity,” compared with 18 percent of older Republicans. And nearly half of millennial Republicans say the government is not doing enough to “reduce the effects of climate change,” compared with 27 percent of older ones. (By contrast, 89 percent of Democrats say the government should do more).
The Green New Deal has played a role as well. The nonbinding congressional resolution calling for a 10-year mobilization to end fossil fuel use has unified Republicans against it. But the attention paid to it also has forced Republicans to offer their own solutions.
“You can’t beat something with nothing. And having a center right alternative to the Green New Deal makes sense,” said Mr. Ayers, the Republican political strategist.
Of course, climate denial is also alive and well among Republicans.
President Trump, who routinely mocks climate science, is preparing to announce a federal advisory panel to cast doubt on the overwhelming body of evidence that climate change is a threat. At a recent hearing at which former Secretary of State John Kerry testified on climate change, Representative Tom Massie, a Kentucky Republican, floated long-debunked theories that offer alternative explanations for warming other than human activity.
Democrats, for their part, said they are skeptical of new calls for compromise. Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, who sponsored the Green New Deal along with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, accused Republicans of rebranding “tired and inadequate proposals from the past” like nuclear and carbon-capture funding.
“We’ll know the Republicans are sincere when they step forward for permanent tax breaks for wind and solar and electric vehicles and battery technologies and clean building technologies. Because we can deploy those technologies right now. But they only continue to talk about research on technologies that will not be deployed for a decade,” Mr. Markey said.
Still, the handful of Republicans who have long looked for ways to tackle the rise of planet-warming emissions urged Democrats to seize the opportunity to find at least some common ground.
“Republicans who used to deny climate change as a real problem just to avoid the issue are now confronting it,” said Carlos Curbelo, a Republican carbon tax supporter who lost his Florida House seat last year. “It’s still early, but I think it’s important to recognize that clearly it’s now a debate about solutions.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/climate/republicans-climate-change-policies.html
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Environmentalists Form New Group to Back States' Transport Climate Plan
Apr 29, 2019 | Inside EPA
Dozens of national, regional and local environmental groups are forming a new coalition to support Northeast and Mid-Atlantic state efforts to craft a regional cap-and-trade program curbing transportation sector greenhouse gases, as the states begin their first public meetings to craft the plan.
Dubbed Our Transportation Future (OTF), the coalition will support states' efforts to address a transportation system that is “unworkable, outmoded and is the leading source of carbon pollution driving climate change,” according to an April 29 press release.
Participants include Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and many others, including state chapters of Environment America the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
The announcement of the coalition comes on the eve of the first public workshop, on April 30 in Boston, of the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). That effort consists of nine states and the District of Columbia developing a regional cap-and-trade program to reduce transportation GHGs and invest the proceeds in cleaner infrastructure.
Most of the states involved in TCI either are already members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) for the utility sector, or are taking steps to trading with that program in 2020.
TCI is planning to conduct modeling and other workshops between now and July, with the goal of issuing a policy proposal by December.
Individual jurisdictions would then decide whether to adopt the plan, and NRDC in a related blog post says states' TCI effort builds on “the significant progress many of them have already made in cleanup up and modernizing the power sector together.”
The OTF press release promises an “active role” by the group in educating state policymakers and the media.
The coalition “aims to help transform the region’s transportation system into a model for the nation that gets people in rural, suburban and urban communities where they need to go safely, more efficiently and with less exposure to harmful pollution.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/environmentalists-form-new-group-back-states-transport-climate-plan
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Pennsylvania Joins State Alliance Focused on Paris Climate Goals
Apr 29, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Herzfeld
Pennsylvania became the newest member of a multistate coalition aligned behind the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases.
Gov. Tom Wolf (D) announced April 29 that he is joining the governors of 22 other states and Puerto Rico in the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group formed in June 2017 in response to President Donald Trump’s announcement of his intention to pull the U.S. out of the 197-country climate pact. All but three of the governors in the alliance are Democrats.
The states in the alliance, which now account for more than half of the U.S. population, seek to uphold the emissions-reduction commitments “our nation made” in the agreement, Wolf said. President Barack Obama signed the accord in September 2016.
Wolf also rolled out the third revision of a state Climate Action Plan issued under a Pennsylvania law passed in 2008. The plan sets out more than 100 proposed actions, including increased reliance on renewable energy, incentives for energy efficiency in buildings, and promotion of electrical vehicles. Achieving just the top 15 of the goals would cut emissions 21 percent by 2025, Wolf said.
Wolf committed the state, in a January executive order, to achieving emissions reductions of 26 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels.
Plan Welcomed, Panned
The plan presents a chance for Pennsylvania “to move forward in setting a binding, declining limit on carbon emissions from the power sector that facilitates energy markets appropriately valuing lowest-cost, least-polluting energy resources,” Andrew Williams, a climate and energy lobbyist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement.
“The biggest area of opportunity is aggressively limiting carbon emissions from the power sector,” in a state that is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the U.S. and has become a leading energy exporter, he said.
But state Sen. Gene Yaw (R), chairman of the state’s Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, called for market-based approaches and expressed opposition to government mandates.
“Markets move and markets fluctuate, and I believe Pennsylvania is at the forefront of clean energy technology that is already reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the board,” he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the House environment committee, Rep. Greg Vitali (D), said in a statement that the most important climate change step Wolf can take immediately “is to quickly enact methane-specific regulations for the oil and gas industry.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/pennsylvania-joins-state-alliance-focused-on-paris-climate-goals
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O'Rourke Pushes Dems on Climate with Texas-Sized Plan
Apr 30, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews
The ambitious climate plan unveiled yesterday by Beto O'Rourke underscored the new reality of global warming politics: Aggressiveness on the issue — at least on the left — has shifted from Congress to the presidential campaign trail.
The former Texas congressman provided a vision that includes legislation to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 — a tall order. It also calls for $5 trillion in spending or tax incentives over 10 years for a wide range of climate projects.
That includes specific ideas — such as $250 billion to research climate science and carbon-cutting technologies — and broader goals such as boosting access to mass transit.
Part of the initiative would be paid through changes to the tax code that would "ensure corporations and the wealthiest ... pay their share" and by ending "tens of billions of dollars of tax breaks currently given to fossil fuel companies," according to his proposal.
O'Rourke's climate pitch comes a week after five other Democratic candidates for president outlined their plans for global warming in a series of town hall events on CNN.
They included Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who said climate change necessitates a robust new policy for water use and conservation, and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who promised to put a moratorium on new drilling and new mining on federal lands.
"We should not be selling out for pennies on the dollar to mining companies and to oil companies our national treasures," Warren said at the time (Climatewire, April 23).
O'Rourke wants to block new fossil fuel leases on federal lands, too. Other presidential hopefuls, such as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, have taken other strong climate stances.
Inslee, who has supported ideas such as taxing carbon emissions, says his top priority as president would be "defeating climate change."
Contrast those suggestions with what's ahead this week in Congress.
The House plans to vote in the coming days on a bill that aims to keep the United States in the landmark Paris climate accord — the bare minimum of what most House Democrats can agree on (E&E Daily, April 29).
Party leaders have floated the possibility of advancing additional climate legislation, but it's unlikely that any of these measures will approach what's being proposed on the campaign trail.
This isn't a surprise. Right now, O'Rourke and his Democratic rivals are trying to distinguish themselves in a crowded primary field, and a bold climate plan is a good way to attract voters' attention.
Contrast that to Democratic lawmakers — especially in swing districts — who have to maintain broad appeal with a more conservative set of voters.
That aligns with the simple reality that far-reaching climate bills have almost no chance of gaining enough support in the next two years from President Trump or the Republican-controlled Senate. House Democratic leaders gain little politically by forcing their vulnerable members to take votes on climate bills that are unlikely to become law.
Even so, it's useful to examine the gap between what White House candidates are proposing and what congressional Democrats aim to pass in the short term — for no other reason than it could foreshadow future debate between the two branches.
Take, for example, the Green New Deal. No fewer than seven Democratic presidential candidates have co-sponsored a resolution that supports the Green New Deal, which includes a plan to fight climate change with a government-led jobs program. That includes several top-tier contenders, including Harris, Warren and Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent.
But the idea has had a rocky road so far in Congress. In spite of attracting more than 90 House co-sponsors, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has resisted calls to put the measure on the floor. Meanwhile, the Senate voted in March on the Green New Deal — but only because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saw it as a way to sow discord among Democrats (E&E Daily, March 27).
It failed 0-57, as most Senate Democrats simply voted present.
The reticence could hamper efforts by O'Rourke to institute bold climate policies if he manages to win the Democratic primary and defeat Trump in 2020.
The reason? Many of the biggest proposals require buy-in from federal lawmakers.
That includes his aim to mobilize $5 trillion in climate spending over 10 years, an effort he pledged would be the "very first bill he sends to Congress." So, too, would his desire to "work with Congress" to create an enforceable standard that would guarantee the United States achieves "net zero emissions by 2050 and be halfway there by 2030," according to his proposal.
And in a plan full of carrots, O'Rourke reserves at least one stick for his home-state energy industry: ending tax subsidies for fossil fuel companies — an idea that also would require congressional approval.
The Permian Basin in Texas has driven much of the country's new exploration and drilling, and the companies behind the boom have been mostly independent producers — the kind of smaller and midsize companies that get the most generous tax subsidies, said Peter Erickson, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute.
"Tax breaks are huge for oil and gas producers in the Permian, so he is actually proposing something that would bite pretty substantially in his own state," he said, adding that research has shown those kinds of federal and state subsidies boost investor returns about 10 percentage points.
Perhaps sensing the complications a future Congress could present, O'Rourke also laid out steps he could take through executive authority if elected. That includes reentering the Paris climate accord — which some of his rivals, such as Klobuchar, also have endorsed — and strengthening regulations to reduce carbon emissions from cars and power plants.
"Those are super-popular things with the public and congressional Democrats, and they can be done right away," said Ryan Fitzpatrick of Third Way, a group that describes itself as a center-left think tank.
That said, Fitzpatrick agreed that the buzz around climate change — both in Congress and on the campaign trail — could lead to dynamic debate.
"Right now, you have a lot of members of Congress who are preparing really smart, really ambitious plans to get to zero [emissions] by 2050," Fitzpatrick said. "There will be no shortage of ideas for solutions to debate."
Reporter Adam Aton contributed.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/04/30/stories/1060242645
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EPA Steps Closer to Undoing 2015 Air Rule for Texas
Apr 30, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Stinson
The EPA is one step closer to granting Texas a sought-after exemption to a 2015 rule limiting emissions during startups, shutdowns, and malfunctions at industrial boilers and facilities.
The Environmental Protection Agency published the draft rule in the Federal Register April 29, saying it was “considering an alternative interpretation” to EPA’s 2015 policy.
The draft rule would reinstate immunity lost in 2015 for industrial facilities that emit air pollution during startup, shutdown or malfunction (SSM) operations—the times when air emissions typically intensify.
Texas is one of 36 states subject to a 2015 air rule that requires removing provisions that shielded power plants and other industrial facilities from being subject to civil penalties over SSM-related emissions violations.
Environmentalists Decry MoveCritics of the proposed draft rule say it rolls back a 2015 Obama-era rule requiring states to alter their pollution plans concerning excess air emissions during startup, shutdown and malfunction at industrial facilities.
“Citizens under the Clean Air Act have a right to enforce Clean Air Violations, and this draft proposal is taking away that right,” Sierra Club senior attorney Andrea Issod told Bloomberg Environment April 29.
“Today’s draft decision allows Texas to deviate from EPA’s 2015 rule, and callously claims that there are no environmental or public health implications,” the Sierra Club said in a news release issued in the wake of the draft plan.
The Sierra Club has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Environment is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.
Open to Public CommentThe draft rule is subject to a public comment period ending June 28. Consideration of the draft could impact other states who may also ask for exemptions.
Issod said this draft proposal allows refineries, power plants, and other industrial facilities in Texas to release significant amounts of pollution claiming they are the result of malfunctioning equipment or startups.
The gist of the 2015 rule says power plants can’t claim immunity from Clean Air Act violations SSM operations.
Issuance of the draft proposal follows a March 2017 Texas petition to the federal agency to secure an exemption from these requirements. EPA agreed, and responded with a draft proposal for Texas to amend its plan to allow these excess emissions.
Issod wouldn’t say when or where they plan to sue, but said that the draft proposal for Texas could have national implications.
—With assistance from Amena Saiyid.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/epa-steps-closer-to-undoing-2015-air-rule-for-texas
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In Response to Lawmakers, CARB Finds No ‘Oversupply’ of GHG Credits
Apr 30, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Curt Barry
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Cal/EPA are reiterating previous declarations that there is no “oversupply” of greenhouse gas credits in the state’s cap-and-trade program, telling state lawmakers that there is no reason to withdraw any credits from the system as some experts have recommended to meet ambitious carbon targets.
But some lawmakers say CARB’s response is not alleviating their concerns about the program, and that they may pursue additional “action” to address outstanding issues.
“Our analyses, and those of several independent market analysts, forecast continued and steady increases in allowance prices over time, sending the critical price signal for companies to act to reduce their GHG emissions,” states an April 22 letter to Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, signed by CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols and Cal/EPA Secretary Jared Blumenfeld.
“As a result of these analyses, [CARB] determined that no changes to allowance supply or banking rules are required at this time. Though forecasted demand may be uncertain, removing allowance supply today will certainly increase compliance costs and costs to consumers, negatively impacting affordability for Californians,” they add.
The letter responds to a March 1 letter to CARB from Democratic legislative leaders urging the air officials to quickly address ongoing concerns that the cap-and-trade program has an overallocation of allowances, which may jeopardize achievement of the Golden State’s ambitious 2030 GHG target of 40 percent below 1990 levels.
Sen. Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), chairman of the Senate budget subcommittee with oversight of CARB and Cal/EPA and who signed the March 1 letter, said in a written statement that he remains worried about the program.
“There is nothing in CARB’s response that alleviates my concern that there is an excess of allowances,” Wieckowski says. “Indeed, CARB admits it. This means auction prices will stay artificially low because they are suppressed by the surplus CARB has created and incentives to invest in equipment to reduce emissions will remain insufficient.”
Further, “The longer we delay changing the status quo, the more likely a steeper climb in prices will be needed as we get closer to 2030,” Wieckowski says. “My office will continue to monitor the program outcomes. If CARB refuses to take action -- despite its own data showing the need for reform -- we may need to consider additional action.”
A chart in the CARB letter shows that there were about 178 million vintage 2013-17 allowances and about 40 million offset credits in private accounts at the end of the program’s 2015-2017 compliance period. Those totals include Quebec’s carbon market, which is linked with the California program.
‘Concerning’ Oversupply
An academic closely following the issue claims the chart shows that the program is oversupplied with allowances. “CARB's disclosure underscores what independent analysts have known for a long time -- that the extent of market overallocation is significant, concerning, and bigger than the worst-case scenario CARB considered” in a recent rulemaking to implement a new law extending the program through 2030 and requiring a suite of policy changes. In that rulemaking, CARB indicated there were about 150 million additional allowances in the system.
The CARB letter notes that board staff will hold a workshop this summer “to discuss potential methodologies to evaluate cost-effective reductions” of GHGs under cap-and-trade, which will include Dallas Burtraw, chairman of the state’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee (IEMAC) and a fellow with the think tank Resources for the Future.
“I hope CARB will take these issues seriously in its upcoming workshop, but I remain concerned that the board has a tendency to dismiss any analysis that doesn't support its preexisting conclusions,” the source says. “I hope that won't happen this time, if for no other reason than CARB's own data now indicate a problem.”
CARB in its new letter also indicates it may provide more data related to GHG allowance supply. “We will continue to engage with the Legislature, Quebec, the IEMAC, and other market experts on recommendations related to additional data disclosures.”
Nevertheless, Nichols and Blumenfeld stand by the program’s effectiveness to date, in addition to the state’s complementary portfolio of other GHG-reduction programs such as the low-carbon fuel standard and vehicle GHG rules.
“In taking action to reduce GHG emissions, we are acutely aware of the need to simultaneously address issues of affordability while avoiding over allocations of allowances,” the letter says. “Analysis shows that California’s portfolio approach to addressing climate change produces the highest likelihood of meeting California’s GHG targets.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/response-lawmakers-carb-finds-no-%E2%80%98oversupply%E2%80%99-ghg-credits
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Los Angeles Unveils Version of Green New Deal
Apr 29, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Anne C. Mulkern
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) today unveiled an ambitious plan to make the nation's second-largest city a Green New Deal leader, with lofty goals for electric vehicles and zero-emissions buildings.
The city, long known for smog and traffic congestion, would have people driving fewer miles and getting behind the wheel of cleaner cars. Garcetti's plan would cut so-called vehicle miles traveled 13% by 2025, 39% by 2035 and 45% by 2050.
Garcetti wants the share of zero-emissions vehicles in the city to hit 25% by 2025, 80% by 2035 and 100% by 2050. The second-term mayor cast it as necessary to address an existential crisis.
"Climate change is a global emergency," Garcetti told reporters in a phone call. "There's no greater threat to our national security, to our economic growth, to the very survival of our cities, our world and future generations."
The city is already dealing with wildfires, torrential flooding that destroys houses and temperatures that hit triple digits, Garcetti said.
A Federal Emergency Management Agency regional leader recently said the agency had spent more on flood-related funding in the past two years than in the past 27 — $80 billion from 2016 to the present.
"At this rate, climate change will well erase everything that we're working on," Garcetti told reporters today.
Garcetti said the city could serve as a "green print" example to other communities and countries throughout the world. He said "politicians don't need to look across the aisle to find the answers; they need to look across the country to Los Angeles."
The city already has sweeping green goals dating back to 2015. Garcetti said many of the benchmarks he was putting forward were accelerating earlier goals.
Under the plan, all new buildings in LA would be net zero carbon emissions by 2030, and 100% of buildings would be net zero carbon by 2050.
The city wants to have its municipal utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, get 55% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025, 80% by 2036 and 100% by 2045.
Part of the plan would include creating new jobs, 45,000 by 2022 from infrastructure investments on a "reliable clean grid," and 6,500 per year installing local solar.
There is more job creation tied to other parts of the plan. Garcetti said the city, under its existing green policies, has created 35,000 new jobs — an amount equal to all the jobs lost nationwide in the coal industry.
EV stations, rebates
Garcetti by 2021 wants to give out 1,000 rebates for purchases of used EVs, 11,500 rebates for purchases of Level 2 EV chargers and 75 for fast chargers. The mayor wants to install 10,000 chargers in public places by 2022 and 25,000 by 2025.
He wants 100% zero-emissions school buses by 2028 and to electrify 100% of city buses by 2030. The plan also calls for electric self-driving cars in addition to electric Ubers, Lyfts, taxis and similar car service vehicles.
Garcetti wants to make part of Los Angeles a "fossil fuel free zone." The map would be drawn up by 2021 and implemented by 2030. He wants a "zero emission road map" for Los Angeles International Airport by 2021.
The city said the precise definition of how the area would work, its size and location are still to be determined. In concept, the area would be limited to zero emission vehicles and other emissions-free modes of transportation.
In terms of LAX, the city said that the airport authority will produce a report outlining how they can get to having only zero emission vehicles coming in and out of the terminals, including a proposed timeline.
There are questions around fairness to all income levels and technical and logistical questions, the city said, so the road map will help define a strategy.
'Where the city has the power'
Transportation experts who commented on the plan said the goals might not be realistic but would set an important benchmark.
"The 2030 target of 80% of electric vehicles is really an incredibly ambitious target you would only reach if indeed you think about a very comprehensive portfolio of public policies," said Antonio Bento, a professor of economics and director of the University of Southern California's Center for Sustainability Solutions.
"I think about this almost as a blueprint for where we should be moving, but also a signal that we are sending to the market that a series of comprehensive public policies will be put into place to move us toward these targets."
There are barriers to lower-income people buying EVs and the government needs to help them do so, Bento said. He added that the plan to up EV charging stations to 28,000 from the current 2,000 would help spur purchases.
"If indeed one puts together a comprehensive package that essentially overcomes all the bottlenecks for adoptions of these technologies that eventually we will get there," Bento said.
Bento and Gil Tal, research director of the University of California, Davis, Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center, said LA could drive a lot of change in the marketplace.
For example, if it imposed a kind of congestion pricing system in the city — similar to what New York City just announced — it could lower fees for ZEVs and increase fees for gas vehicles.
Similar policies could be imposed at LAX, Tal said. If only electric shuttles and ride-sharing cars were able to drive into the airport area, that would spur companies to add the cars, he said.
It could also be done with higher fees for gas-driven cars to enter the premises. "That's kind of where the city has the power," Tal said.
Tal said cutting the number of miles people drive will be harder than electrifying vehicles. "That means that people will need to have other alternatives," Tal said.
The city said it hoped people would drive less given the money that's going to public transit after passage of a ballot measure in 2016 raising the sales tax to fund subways, light rail and other options.
Additionally, the emergence of ride-sharing and services like e-scooters, bikes and e-bikes will play a role in getting people out of single-occupancy vehicles, the city said.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/04/29/stories/1060242043
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