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ACC AM 5/7/2019

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Trump Administration Accuses Chinese Officials of ‘Reneging’ on Commitments in Trade Talks
May 6, 2019 | Washington Post
By David J. Lynch and Robert Costa

Senior U.S. officials accused Beijing on Monday of reneging on commitments it had agreed to during negotiations for a comprehensive trade deal and vowed that punishing tariffs on Chinese imports would more than double Friday.
(ACC Mentioned) US Accuses China of ‘Reneging’ on Trade Promises
May 7, 2019 | Financial Times
By James Politi and Tom Mitchell

Senior US officials accused China of backtracking on its pledges in talks to end the trade war between the world’s largest economies and said a new round of tariffs on Chinese exports would take effect on Friday morning.
(ACC Mentioned) IMF's Lagarde Urges Us and China to Resolve Trade War - Business Live
May 7, 2019 | The Guardian - Business Live
By Graeme Wearden

America’s chemicals industry has warned that hiking the tariffs on Chinese chemicals from 10% to 25% would hurt the US economy.
How Tariffs Are Hurting U.S. Fuel and Chemical Manufacturers
May 7, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Chet Thompson

Recent coverage of the U.S.-China trade talks has focused on protecting agriculture and intellectual property.
Steve Bannon: We’re in an Economic War with China. It’s Futile to Compromise.
May 7, 2019 | Washington Post
By Steve Bannon

Getting tough with China to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States was the linchpin of President Trump’s electoral march through the Rust Belt during his 2016 victory.
House Panel Poised to Boost Allowable EPA Funding for FY20
May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

The House Appropriations Committee appears poised to unveil a proposed fiscal year 2020 plan for EPA and several other agencies that would boost total allowable funding levels for the agencies over FY19's levels...

TSCA News

Critiques of Chemical Analyses Set for June, EPA’s Dunn Says (1) (Updated)
May 6, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

The EPA expects scientists to begin critiquing its 10 draft chemical risk evaluations in June to enable the agency to decide by December whether any of the substances pose an unreasonable risk that triggers regulation.
EPA Pressed to Revise TSCA CBI Procedural Proposal
May 7, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has called on the US EPA to modify and begin a new consultation on its proposed TSCA confidential business information (CBI) procedural rule, to ensure it is consistent with a recent court ruling.
EPA Expands Asbestos SNUR While Curbing Risk Evaluation, Irking Critics
May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad

EPA's recently finalized rule regulating renewed uses of asbestos expanded the number of applications subject to regulation but cut some of those applications from a related risk evaluation of existing uses, angering critics who say the agency is further narrowing any future toxics rule...
Industry Raises Fears Over EPA's Asbestos Shift But Largely Backs SNUR
May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad

Industry lawyers who represent chemical and other industries are generally backing EPA's recently expanded significant new use rule (SNUR) governing legacy uses of asbestos, though like environmentalists

Chemical Management News

Governments Endorse Global PFOA Ban, with Some Exemptions
May 7, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue

A widely used industrial fluorochemical that is linked to cancer and pollutes drinking water around the world is on its way to a global phaseout.
House Energy Panel to Move Fluorochemical Bills, Rep. Tonko Says
May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tiffany Stecker

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is ready to take up several bills to clean up a widespread class of chemicals linked to cancer, immune system deficiencies, and thyroid and liver problems.
Three Controversial Chemicals Top EPA’s Pesticide To-Do List
May 6, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Adam Allington

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to review new science on a number of high-profile pesticides in the coming months to support any possible decisions.
Legislation to Ban 'Cyanide Bombs' Resurfaces
May 7, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Philip Athey

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation last week to ban two poisons used to protect livestock from predators.

Energy News

EPA Says Final ACE Rule Coming in June
May 7, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillén

EPA plans to finalize the Affordable Clean Energy rule — its replacement for the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan — in June, the agency revealed in a court filing today.
Lawmakers Seek Ban on New Fossil Fuel Facilities
May 7, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)

Two New York state lawmakers are introducing legislation that would ban the development of new fossil fuel plants or pipelines as part of the state's energy system.
Oregon Denies Water Permit for Jordan Cove LNG Project
May 7, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillén

Oregon today said it will not certify the proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas terminal under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, making it the latest state to reject a fossil fuel project by using its authority under the landmark federal water law.
Antero Gets Boost from More Appalachian NGL Exports
May 7, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin

Antero Resources Corp. gained additional access to export markets for its natural gas liquids during the first quarter, which significantly boosted its free cash flow in a trend that’s expected to continue this year as it ramps-up shipments bound for overseas markets.
Court Weighs Export Question in FERC Approvals
May 7, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Pamela King

Federal judges yesterday scrutinized the government's approval of a natural gas pipeline slated to send some of its fuel to Canada.
Bipartisan Bill Would Encourage Technology Commercialization
May 7, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Philip Athey

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation last week to ease the transfer of energy technologies developed in government labs to the private sector.
Anadarko Accepts Occidental Bid; Chevron Can Boost Bid or Walk
May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Adams-Heard and Joe Carroll

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s board has declared Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s sweetened $38 billion takeover “superior,” allowing Chevron Corp. to either boost its offer or walk away with a $1 billion breakup fee.

Chemical Security News

Explosion Rocks Silicones Plant
May 6, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch

Investigators are now sifting through the rubble and are trying to make sense of the unusual explosion and fire on the night of May 3 that left three people dead at a US silicones manufacturing plant.
Fatal Illinois Chemical Explosion’s Cause Under Investigation
May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson

An explosion at an Illinois specialty chemicals plant that killed three workers May 3 is prompting investigations by federal authorities.
It’s up to All of Us to Prevent Another Chemical Plant Fire
May 7, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By Editorial Board

If you see something, say something.That’s good advice in this era when airports, train stations, schools and even churches have become settings for terrorist acts. It’s a good slogan for neighborhoods trying to work with police to reduce crime.

Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Environment News

House Tax-Writing Panel Plans May 15 Climate Change Hearing
May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kaustuv Basu

The House Ways and Means Committee plans to hold a May 15 hearing on climate change, according to sources familiar with the conversation.
Ocasio-Cortez to Headline Green New Deal Rally in Washington, DC
May 7, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Justin Wise

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will headline a rally later this month in Washington, D.C., promoting the Green New Deal, a progressive proposal that calls for sweeping reforms to combat climate change.
Senate Dems Challenge Trump's UN Nominee on Climate Change
May 6, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Zack Budryk

Three Senate Democrats on Friday called on Kelly Craft, President Trump’s nominee to serve as United Nations ambassador, to commit to prioritizing U.S. interests on climate change over her financial interests.
Human Activity, Climate Change Driving Widespread Species Loss
May 6, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Abby Smith

Ecosystems and species are declining quickly and significantly as a result of human activity, and the losses are exacerbated by global warming, according to a new international report that marks the most comprehensive assessment of biodiversity losses to date.
Inslee to Sign Bill Phasing Out Potent Greenhouse Gases
May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky

Members of a class of refrigerants that are powerful greenhouse gases would be phased out in Washington state beginning in 2020, under a bill Gov. Jay Inslee (D) will sign into law late May 7.
Global CO2 Nears Troubling Benchmark
May 7, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Scott Waldman

The world has surpassed a level of carbon dioxide not seen in about 3 million years, and levels are accelerating an unprecedented pace.
U.S. Blocks Language on Climate
May 7, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick

A meeting of the world's eight Arctic nations ended today without a formal agreement after the United States refused to allow language on climate change to be included.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Trump Administration Accuses Chinese Officials of ‘Reneging’ on Commitments in Trade Talks

May 6, 2019 | Washington Post

By David J. Lynch and Robert Costa

Senior U.S. officials accused Beijing on Monday of reneging on commitments it had agreed to during negotiations for a comprehensive trade deal and vowed that punishing tariffs on Chinese imports would more than double Friday.
Despite the tough talk, Robert E. Lighthizer, the president’s chief trade negotiator, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration expects to host Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and a Chinese team for further talks in Washington on Thursday evening and Friday.
But with the officials publicly underscoring President Trump’s weekend anti-China broadside, prospects for a deal this week — as the administration had hoped for — appear to be fading.
“Over the course of the last week or so, we have seen an erosion in commitments by China. I would say retreating from specific commitments that had already been made,” Lighthizer told reporters in Washington. “That, in our view, is unacceptable.”
The Chinese sought to make “substantial” changes in the agreed text of a voluminous, seven-chapter pact, he said, adding, “Really, I would use the word ‘reneging’ on prior commitments.”
The administration officials declined to specify where the Chinese sought to amend the proposed accord.
Chinese demands to water down provisions in the deal were delivered to the administration late last week, infuriating the president, who responded by announcing new tariff plans Sunday. That move triggered the sharpest fall in Chinese stock markets in more than three years.
In the United States, the market reaction was muted. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 471 points at the open, but quickly recovered and closed at 26,438.48, down less than 67 points or 0.25 percent.
The apparent diplomatic impasse comes with both countries having reason to believe they could endure a prolonged conflict — and with Chinese President Xi Jinping probably reassessing the political gains and losses associated with bowing to U.S. demands.
The U.S. economy grew in the first quarter at a surprisingly robust 3.2 percent rate, and unemployment fell last month to its lowest point in nearly 50 years. Meanwhile in China, government stimulus measures have insulated the economy from the worst effects of the trade war.
“Recent developments on both sides may have ended up strengthening both sides’ spines and reducing the urgency of a deal,” said David Loevinger, managing director of TCW, a Los Angeles-based investment firm.
Lighthizer and Mnuchin, who briefed reporters at the trade representative’s office, brushed aside worries about the impact on the economy or financial markets if the talks collapse. Mnuchin said stock market concerns are playing no role in the administration’s strategy.
Liu, the Chinese negotiator and a Xi ally, may have encountered political resistance when he presented the nearly complete deal to the Politburo Standing Committee of China’s Communist Party, said Dennis Wilder, a former China analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency.
U.S. demands for structural changes in China’s state-led economic model would hurt many state-owned enterprises and their political patrons.
“There may have been a little sticker shock,” Wilder said. “We’re dealing with a 150-page document that’s very comprehensive and touches all kinds of Chinese vested interests at the national and provincial levels.”
Trump’s ambitions for a fundamental reset of the U.S.-China economic relationship are colliding with internal politics in the opaque Chinese system. The American president wants a dramatic reduction in the $375 billion U.S. trade deficit with China along with an end to discrimination against foreign firms in China.
Though perhaps the most powerful Chinese ruler since Deng Xiaoping, Xi has been criticized for mismanaging the relationship with the United States and failing to understand its populist president.
“This is a monumental trade deal. It’s the biggest thing since they joined the [World Trade Organization] that we’ve tried to do with China,” Wilder said. “The stakes are very high, and they’re political stakes.”
The administration still is holding out hope for a deal. Mnuchin said that if the two sides make significant progress Thursday, “we would report back to the president.”
Trump has delayed the tariff increase — to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion in Chinese goods — at least twice and could do so again.
But Lighthizer said he plans to publish the required Federal Register notice as soon as Thursday, formally setting in motion the increase, which would take effect Friday. In response to a question about the effect of a sudden tariff jump on American companies that have goods en route from China, Lighthizer said companies had received adequate warning of the import levies over months of trade talks.
Obtaining Chinese agreement to stop compelling U.S. companies to surrender their trade secrets to do business in China and to stop stealing American intellectual property would be worth suffering some short-term pain, he suggested.
“The practices that we are objecting to by China are having very negative effects on the U.S. economy,” he said. “These are not benign actions we are objecting to.”
In 10 rounds of bargaining over the past year, the two sides made “substantial progress, more progress than has ever been made before in any discussion with China,” Mnuchin said.
As an example, the two officials said the Chinese had agreed to eliminate “market-distorting subsidies,” a key U.S. objective.
Added Lighthizer: “We are still in the process of talking. We’re not breaking off talks at this point.”
The administration staged a show of unity Monday, with Larry Kudlow, head of the National Economic Council, and Peter Navarro, a leading White House China hawk, appearing in the room as Lighthizer and Mnuchin spoke.
Lighthizer and Navarro are generally regarded as seeking deep changes in Chinese trade and economic policies, while Kudlow and Mnuchin are seen as more worried about the health of U.S. financial markets.
Some industry groups already oppose an escalation of Trump’s tariff war. Cal Dooley, American Chemistry Council president, said the U.S. tariffs and China’s retaliatory levies are increasing the U.S. trade deficit.
American companies have been stockpiling chemicals from Chinese suppliers that are available from no other countries, while exports to China have been depressed by Chinese retaliation.
“The tariffs are disrupting supply chains, cutting off markets and eroding U.S. chemical manufacturing competitiveness,” said Dooley.
David French, senior vice president of government relations for the National Retail Federation, said that consumers would feel the sting of additional tariffs and that small businesses would struggle to absorb the blow.
“Anybody trying to run a business knows that what you want is predictability and consistency,” he said. “That certainly has not been the case on the trade front for a while.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-administration-accuses-chinese-officials-of-reneging-on-earlier-commitments-in-trade-talks/2019/05/06/808e91f4-7037-11e9-8be0-ca575670e91c_story.html?utm_term=.e218b4b1103a

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(ACC Mentioned) US Accuses China of ‘Reneging’ on Trade Promises

May 7, 2019 | Financial Times

By James Politi and Tom Mitchell

Senior US officials accused China of backtracking on its pledges in talks to end the trade war between the world’s largest economies and said a new round of tariffs on Chinese exports would take effect on Friday morning.
Despite the stinging criticism directed at President Xi Jinping’s trade negotiators, China’s commerce ministry said on Tuesday that vice-premier Liu He would arrive in Washington on Thursday for an abbreviated round of talks. Mr Liu had previously been scheduled to lead a large delegation for at least three days of discussions aimed at concluding a draft agreement.
In a briefing on Monday, Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, and Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, said the Trump administration was prepared to move ahead with higher tariffs on $200bn of Chinese imports as they accused Mr Liu’s team of failing to honour commitments made in previous negotiating rounds.
“Over the course of the last week or so we have seen an erosion in commitments by China,” Mr Lighthizer said. “Really, I would use the word reneging on prior commitments.” Mr Mnuchin described a “big change in direction for the negotiations”.
In its statement, China’s commerce ministry did not respond to Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin’s comments. Chinese stock markets, which had fallen sharply on Monday, also stabilised as it emerged that this week’s negotiations had not been completely derailed.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on the US allegations, saying it was “natural for the two sides to have differences”. Geng Shuang also dismissed the threat of higher US tariffs on Chinese imports as “something we have seen many times before”.
The remarks underscored the abrupt shift in the tone of US-China negotiations in recent days. Last week, Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin left Beijing touting “productive” conversations that were widely expected to set the stage for a final session and possibly an agreement by the end of this week.
On Sunday, however, Donald Trump, the US president, fired off a pair of tweets denouncing the slow pace of the negotiations and vowing to impose higher tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods.
Mr Trump’s tweets caused a sell-off in equity markets on Monday, as investors grappled with the prospect of a new escalation in US-China trade tensions. By late trading in New York, the losses were contained, partly because of expectations that some kind of settlement between Washington and Beijing could still be found. But Mr Lighthizer’s comments sent the S&P 500 futures contract falling again, and hit after-market trading in trade-sensitive stocks like Apple, Caterpillar and Boeing.
Chinese equities rebounded slightly on Tuesday, rising more than 1 per cent after falling 5.8 per cent on Monday — the biggest one-day fall in more than three years, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up by nearly 0.6 per cent after shedding over 2.8 per cent the previous day.
Japan’s Topix slipped nearly 0.5 per cent after traders returned from a six-day holiday. South Korea’s Kospi fell over 0.9 per cent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up almost 0.9 per cent.
Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin stressed they were not breaking off talks with Beijing, leaving some hope the negotiations could get back on track.
However, Mr Lighthizer said they were ready to move ahead with higher tariffs on Chinese goods while Mr Liu and his team are in Washington. Under such a scenario, he said levies on $200bn of Chinese goods would increase from 10 per cent to 25 per cent at 12.01am on Friday morning.
Mr Lighthizer did not specify precisely how China had retreated on its pledges but he suggested a backlash from hawks in Beijing might have caused the shift. “My own view is that these were serious, real commitments that were enforceable and that some people in China found that difficult and objected to it,” he said. “For whatever reason, it is where it is.”
According to people briefed on the negotiations, Chinese officials moved away from their previous willingness to enshrine measures to curb technology transfer and to protect US intellectual property in law, insisting that steps could be taken simply by changing regulations.
Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin did not, however, specify what lay at the heart of the eleventh-hour dispute.
“It did become particularly clear over the weekend, with some new information, that they were trying to go back on language that had been previously negotiated, very clear language that had the potential of changing the deal dramatically,” Mr Mnuchin said. “It’s unfortunate if we can’t conclude an agreement because I think this agreement would have opened up China.”
US business groups had been hoping a deal would materialise, and mostly reacted with disappointment to the prospect of higher tariffs.
“Future growth for our industry depends on a strong trading relationship with China and a trade policy that creates certainty and predictability for investors — not a looming threat of more or higher tariffs,” said Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council. “We are starting to see signs that the tariffs are disrupting supply chains, cutting off markets, and eroding US chemical manufacturing competitiveness.”
Mr Lighthizer suggested that businesses should have factored in the possibility of failure of the talks, saying they had been put “on notice that this was something that could very well happen”. He also said there would be a process to exempt some companies from the levies.
While corporate America has been pushing for a deal, China hardliners in Washington cheered the tougher tone from Mr Trump, calling on the US administration to hold the line and not accept a weak deal. In recent weeks, there had been growing criticism that China had not made sufficient concessions on issues ranging from digital trade, to cybertheft and industrial subsidies.
Mr Mnuchin and Mr Lighthizer emphasised that there had not been a personal rupture with Mr Liu in recent days, though Mr Mnuchin said they had not had any conversations with the Chinese vice-premier since they left Beijing.

“We have a friendly mood, we have a trusted relationship, we are just moving backwards, not forwards,” Mr Lighthizer said. “For right now, the progress is towards the rear.”Senior US officials accused China of backtracking on its pledges in talks to end the trade war between the world’s largest economies and said a new round of tariffs on Chinese exports would take effect on Friday morning.

Despite the stinging criticism directed at President Xi Jinping’s trade negotiators, China’s commerce ministry said on Tuesday that vice-premier Liu He would arrive in Washington on Thursday for an abbreviated round of talks. Mr Liu had previously been scheduled to lead a large delegation for at least three days of discussions aimed at concluding a draft agreement.
In a briefing on Monday, Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, and Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, said the Trump administration was prepared to move ahead with higher tariffs on $200bn of Chinese imports as they accused Mr Liu’s team of failing to honour commitments made in previous negotiating rounds.
“Over the course of the last week or so we have seen an erosion in commitments by China,” Mr Lighthizer said. “Really, I would use the word reneging on prior commitments.” Mr Mnuchin described a “big change in direction for the negotiations”.
In its statement, China’s commerce ministry did not respond to Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin’s comments. Chinese stock markets, which had fallen sharply on Monday, also stabilised as it emerged that this week’s negotiations had not been completely derailed.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on the US allegations, saying it was “natural for the two sides to have differences”. Geng Shuang also dismissed the threat of higher US tariffs on Chinese imports as “something we have seen many times before”.
The remarks underscored the abrupt shift in the tone of US-China negotiations in recent days. Last week, Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin left Beijing touting “productive” conversations that were widely expected to set the stage for a final session and possibly an agreement by the end of this week.
On Sunday, however, Donald Trump, the US president, fired off a pair of tweets denouncing the slow pace of the negotiations and vowing to impose higher tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods.
Mr Trump’s tweets caused a sell-off in equity markets on Monday, as investors grappled with the prospect of a new escalation in US-China trade tensions. By late trading in New York, the losses were contained, partly because of expectations that some kind of settlement between Washington and Beijing could still be found. But Mr Lighthizer’s comments sent the S&P 500 futures contract falling again, and hit after-market trading in trade-sensitive stocks like Apple, Caterpillar and Boeing.
Chinese equities rebounded slightly on Tuesday, rising more than 1 per cent after falling 5.8 per cent on Monday — the biggest one-day fall in more than three years, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up by nearly 0.6 per cent after shedding over 2.8 per cent the previous day.
Japan’s Topix slipped nearly 0.5 per cent after traders returned from a six-day holiday. South Korea’s Kospi fell over 0.9 per cent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up almost 0.9 per cent.
Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin stressed they were not breaking off talks with Beijing, leaving some hope the negotiations could get back on track.
However, Mr Lighthizer said they were ready to move ahead with higher tariffs on Chinese goods while Mr Liu and his team are in Washington. Under such a scenario, he said levies on $200bn of Chinese goods would increase from 10 per cent to 25 per cent at 12.01am on Friday morning.
Mr Lighthizer did not specify precisely how China had retreated on its pledges but he suggested a backlash from hawks in Beijing might have caused the shift. “My own view is that these were serious, real commitments that were enforceable and that some people in China found that difficult and objected to it,” he said. “For whatever reason, it is where it is.”
According to people briefed on the negotiations, Chinese officials moved away from their previous willingness to enshrine measures to curb technology transfer and to protect US intellectual property in law, insisting that steps could be taken simply by changing regulations.
Mr Lighthizer and Mr Mnuchin did not, however, specify what lay at the heart of the eleventh-hour dispute.
“It did become particularly clear over the weekend, with some new information, that they were trying to go back on language that had been previously negotiated, very clear language that had the potential of changing the deal dramatically,” Mr Mnuchin said. “It’s unfortunate if we can’t conclude an agreement because I think this agreement would have opened up China.”
US business groups had been hoping a deal would materialise, and mostly reacted with disappointment to the prospect of higher tariffs.
“Future growth for our industry depends on a strong trading relationship with China and a trade policy that creates certainty and predictability for investors — not a looming threat of more or higher tariffs,” said Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council. “We are starting to see signs that the tariffs are disrupting supply chains, cutting off markets, and eroding US chemical manufacturing competitiveness.”
Mr Lighthizer suggested that businesses should have factored in the possibility of failure of the talks, saying they had been put “on notice that this was something that could very well happen”. He also said there would be a process to exempt some companies from the levies.
While corporate America has been pushing for a deal, China hardliners in Washington cheered the tougher tone from Mr Trump, calling on the US administration to hold the line and not accept a weak deal. In recent weeks, there had been growing criticism that China had not made sufficient concessions on issues ranging from digital trade, to cybertheft and industrial subsidies.
Mr Mnuchin and Mr Lighthizer emphasised that there had not been a personal rupture with Mr Liu in recent days, though Mr Mnuchin said they had not had any conversations with the Chinese vice-premier since they left Beijing.
“We have a friendly mood, we have a trusted relationship, we are just moving backwards, not forwards,” Mr Lighthizer said. “For right now, the progress is towards the rear.”
Additional reporting by Robin Wigglesworth in New York, Hudson Lockett and Daniel Shane in Hong Kong and Yuan Yang in Beijing
https://www.ft.com/content/ea07e70e-7044-11e9-bbfb-5c68069fbd15

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(ACC Mentioned) IMF's Lagarde Urges Us and China to Resolve Trade War - Business Live

May 7, 2019 | The Guardian - Business Live

By Graeme Wearden

America’s chemicals industry has warned that hiking the tariffs on Chinese chemicals from 10% to 25% would hurt the US economy.
Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), says:
China supplies the United States with several chemicals which are not available anywhere else and which are critical inputs to U.S. manufacturing. China is also the third-largest export market for U.S. chemicals manufacturers. Future growth for our industry depends on a strong trading relationship with China and a trade policy that creates certainty and predictability for investors – not a looming threat of more or higher tariffs.
“We are starting to see signs that the tariffs are disrupting supply chains, cutting off markets, and eroding U.S. chemical manufacturing competitiveness. Although chemical imports from China grew by 22.7 percent in 2018, the retaliatory tariffs significantly dampened U.S. chemical exports to China, resulting in only a 2.7 percent increase in 2018 – nearly tripling the chemicals trade deficit, from $1.4 billion to $4.0 billion.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2019/may/07/us-china-trade-tensions-trump-lighthizer-liu-he-uk-house-prices-cars-business-live

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How Tariffs Are Hurting U.S. Fuel and Chemical Manufacturers

May 7, 2019 | Houston Chronicle

By Chet Thompson

Recent coverage of the U.S.-China trade talks has focused on protecting agriculture and intellectual property. As negotiations approach the final phase, the impact of tariffs on U.S. refiners and petrochemical manufacturers — whose products support industries across the economy and fuel consumers every day — is still going largely unnoticed. As trade discussions repeatedly come up short, American fuel and petrochemical producers continue to be denied access to one of their most important markets and struggle to plan for the future, amid higher costs for materials essential to midstream infrastructure and an uncertain policy environment.
American refining and petrochemical manufacturing are together a powerful economic force, supplying U.S. and global markets with gasoline, diesel, jet and marine fuel, as well as petrochemical building-blocks such as ethylene and propylene that are essential to innovative products — from solar panels to heart valves. The shale renaissance brought booming production of crude oil and natural gas, and the corresponding growth of the fuel and U.S. petrochemical industries over the past decade has been nothing short of remarkable. These sectors now support 4 million well-paying jobs and generate $130 billion in federal and state taxes that fund essential services.
Today, the United States is a top producer and global supplier of petrochemical products — especially in Houston, home to the largest petrochemical manufacturing complex in the Americas. In the last two years, the petrochemical industry has invested more than $30 billion in U.S. projects and more than100 facility expansions, and we now have the capacity to produce almost 17 billion pounds of the most in-demand petrochemical, ethylene. Even the Houston Ship Channel is getting prepared for this future growth by accelerating the widening and deepening of the export waterway.
Unfortunately, our potential is limited by trade dynamics that are reshaping traditional global supply patterns. Chinese tariffs have targeted some of the top U.S. petrochemical exports - including ethylene. More than 90 percent of U.S. petrochemical capacity additions are to increase ethylene production.
The resulting uncertainty is threatening the global competitiveness of U.S. petrochemical and energy products. Chinese buyers of U.S. petrochemicals now have incentive to purchase elsewhere, and China is also investing to expand its own petrochemical manufacturing capacity while U.S. petrochemical manufacturers are forced to consider delaying projects or reducing their investments. This is a missed opportunity for America — money not being put toward growing our manufacturing capabilities, hiring workers or generating tax revenue.
U.S. tariffs on foreign steel have also inflated the cost of steel-intensive projects, such as infrastructure development and facility expansions and upgrades. In fact, these tariffs raise the cost of building the pipelines needed to transport oil and natural gas from production areas to refining facilities by as much as 30 percent. Almost 80 percent of the specialty steel required for pipelines must be imported and is currently subject to a 25 percent tariff. American companies are forced to pay the import tax or purchase significantly higher-priced materials from other sources. Simply put, it’s more expensive to do business in America because of these tariffs.
The degree to which these trade disputes are hampering the economic potential of our industries should send a strong signal to the Trump administration, which has established American energy dominance as a key priority in its agenda. While actions to grow offshore exploration, regulatory relief to aid the shale boom, and executive orders that open pathways to faster pipeline permitting have been much-needed and welcomed, without export markets for our products or the proper infrastructure to transport them, it is impossible to realize the full benefits of our abundant domestic resources.
America’s new role as a top energy and petrochemical producer can only remain a reality if it is supported by competitive trade policy. As the U.S.-China talks move toward resolution, we encourage the administration to remember that the combination of free and fair trade — as well as policies that promote market access and enhance competition — will help the fuel and petrochemical industries continue to drive our economy and further strengthen American energy dominance.
Thompson is president and CEO of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/How-tariffs-are-hurting-U-S-fuel-and-chemical-13823255.php

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Steve Bannon: We’re in an Economic War with China. It’s Futile to Compromise.

May 7, 2019 | Washington Post

By Steve Bannon

Stephen K. Bannon served as chief strategist for President Trump from January 2017 to August 2017.
Getting tough with China to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States was the linchpin of President Trump’s electoral march through the Rust Belt during his 2016 victory. Today, the goal of the radical cadre running China — the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — is to be the global hegemonic power. The president’s threatened tariffson Sunday demonstrate the severity of this threat. But as Washington and Beijing wrap up months of negotiations on a trade deal this month, whatever emerges won’t be a trade deal. It will be a temporary truce in a years-long economic and strategic war with China.
These are six “understandings” that highlight why it is futile to compromise with this regime.
The first understanding: The CCP has been waging economic war against industrial democracies ever since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, and now China has emerged as the greatest economic and national security threat the United States has ever faced.
As a framework for the current trade talks, China must agree to end forced technology transfers; intellectual property theft; cyberintrusions into business networks; currency manipulation; high tariff and nontariff barriers; and unfair subsidies to state-owned enterprises. However, if the CCP agrees to the United States’ demands in an enforceable manner, it would amount to a legal and regulatory dismantling of Chinese state capitalism.
The second understanding: The trade deal under negotiation this month is not a deal between two similar systems seeking closer ties, as its cheerleaders on Wall Street and in the media and academia argue. Rather, this is a fundamental clash between two radically different economic models.Trump threatens higher tariffs on China
President Trump on May 5 threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods as trade talks continue. (Reuters)
The best U.S. result is a detailed document in which China renounces its predatory, confiscatory and mercantilist practices while providing ample means to monitor and promptly enforce the agreement.
The best CCP result is to get the tariffs lifted by filing reams of paper with false, unenforceable promises that will allow it to run out the clock on the Trump administration and hope for a less antagonistic Democratic alternative.
The third understanding: Chinese state capitalism is highly profitable for its owners — the members of the CCP. Stagnant state-owned enterprises gain a competitive edge through massive government subsidies and the cost savings won by stealing the intellectual property, technology and innovations of foreigners.
If China halted such grand theft, its enterprises would be rapidly outcompeted by the Germans, South Koreans, Japanese and especially the United States.
This fact explains much about internal Chinese politics today. President Xi Jinping faces a palace sharply divided between reformers led by chief trade negotiator Liu He and a swarm of hawks who have profited and gained power from the status quo. Within China itself, it is both gallows humor and even money as to whether Liu He will be celebrated as the next Deng Xiaoping or end up in a Chinese gulag.
The fourth understanding: Certain Trump advisers inside and outside the White House are playing on the president’s well-earned pride in a rising stock market and a fear he might lose the Farm Belt to try to box him into a weak deal. But it is a decidedly false narrative that any failure to reach a deal will lead to a market meltdown and economic implosion.
In fact, there is no better argument for Trump keeping his bold tariffs on China than the latest report that the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter.
Anything less than a great deal will subject the president to relentless criticism from the Charles E. Schumer and Bernie Sanders wings of the Democratic Party. In addition, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) might use it to get to the right of Trump on China — potentially setting up a later primary challenge. For these reasons, the president’s best political option is not to surrender, but rather to double down on the tariffs — they have been highly effective in pressuring the Chinese without harming the U.S. economy.
The fifth understanding: Even the toughest agreement needs effective monitoring, which is difficult even with accommodating partners and perhaps impossible with China. The danger is for the president to sign what appears to be a reasonable deal and find out several years later that the United States was hoodwinked.
The United States failed to adequately monitor China’s entry into the WTO in 2001. Instead of access to a billion Chinese consumers, the United States lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000.
The sixth understanding: The world now bears witness to a rapidly militarizing totalitarian state imprisoning millions in work camps; persecuting Uighurs, Christians and Buddhists; and spying on, and enslaving, its own population.
This is history in real time; and the world is a house divided — half slave, half free. Trump and Xi are facing off to tip the scales in one direction or the other. One way leads to the benefits of freedom, democracy and free-market capitalism. The other leads to a totalitarian and mercantilist power run on state capitalism with Chinese characteristics.
The United States’ fight is not with the Chinese people but with the CCP. The Chinese people are the first and continuous victims of this barbarous regime.
The central issues that must be faced are China’s intentions on the world stage and what those ambitions mean for U.S. prosperity. With our country at a crossroads, it is more important than ever that Trump follow his instincts and not soften his stance against the greatest existential threat ever faced by the United States.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/steve-bannon-were-in-an-economic-war-with-china-its-futile-to-compromise/2019/05/06/0055af36-7014-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html?utm_term=.7aa45911131e

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House Panel Poised to Boost Allowable EPA Funding for FY20

May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

The House Appropriations Committee appears poised to unveil a proposed fiscal year 2020 plan for EPA and several other agencies that would boost total allowable funding levels for the agencies over FY19's levels, creating the potential for EPA to win more generous funding than the committee allocated last year.
According to Politico, the spending panel's Chairwoman Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) has approved so-called 302(b) allocations directing how much funding each of the appropriations subcommittees will have to fund the various agencies within their control. The interior-environment subcommittee allocation, which includes EPA's funding, is $37.3 for FY20, representing a $1.7 billion increase over the subcommittee's $35.6 billion allocation in FY19.
Specific EPA funding figures are unavailable, and preliminary numbers will not be known until the House Appropriations Committee releases its draft FY20 interior spending legislation.
But the fact the full committee has increased the interior 302(b) allocation suggests lawmakers might be planning to give some of that boost to EPA's budget.
And the FY20 appropriations process more broadly represents the first opportunity for the House Democrats to draft the Interior measure in nearly a decade, after Democrats gained the House majority in the 2018 election, with Democrats are typically more amendable to EPA funding than their GOP colleagues.
However, the extent of Democratic push back against EPA budget cuts in prior Congresses remains will become clearer when the actual Interior bill is released and marked up, as well as during subsequent negotiations with the Senate and the White House that is looking to slash the agency's funding. President Donald Trump's FY20 budget proposal would cut the agency's overall funding down to $6.1 billion compared to its current funding level of $8.9 billion.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/house-panel-poised-boost-allowable-epa-funding-fy20

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TSCA News

Critiques of Chemical Analyses Set for June, EPA’s Dunn Says (1) (Updated)

May 6, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

The EPA expects scientists to begin critiquing its 10 draft chemical risk evaluations in June to enable the agency to decide by December whether any of the substances pose an unreasonable risk that triggers regulation.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals is likely to hold its first meeting in June, Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, told Bloomberg Environment May 6.
Dunn discussed her plans for the coming year and ways her previous jobs in the private, public, and academic sectors will influence how she oversees both pesticides and chemicals.
She joined the EPA in January at the start of a year to be marked with high profile decisions on products including glyphosate, a popular weedkiller alleged to cause cancer; chlorpyrifos, a pesticide used on crops that has been linked to neurological damage in children; methylene chloride, a solvent that has proven deadly when used in poorly ventilated spaces; and asbestos, a cancer-causing mineral that is still imported to produce certain industrial chemicals.
Bayer AG, DowDupont, Occidental Petroleum Corp., Olin Corp., and oil drillers are just a few of the companies or industries that make or use some of the products that the agency must decide on.
Peer Reviews
The first draft risk evaluation the science advisory committee will examine will be Pigment Violet 29, a colorant used in coatings in a variety of consumer products, Dunn said. The peer review panel was scheduled to review in January the agency’s preliminary conclusion that the pigment posed no undue health or environment risks. But the EPA had to delay that meeting due to the government shutdown.
The committee will peer review the remaining draft risk evaluations in groups; the advisers may evaluate a group of chemical solvents in a single meeting, Dunn said.
The EPA is evaluating nine chemicals and one group of chemicals: asbestos; Pigment Violet 29; 1-bromopropane; carbon tetrachloride; 1-4 dioxane; methylene chloride; n-methylpyrrolidone; perchloroethylene; trichloroethylene; and a group of three flame retardants called the cyclic aliphatic bromide cluster.
The agency is working to have peer reviews of all 10 chemicals completed and publish final risk evaluations by December, Dunn said. The Toxic Substances Control Act amendments of 2016 allow the agency to extend that deadline until June 22, 2020.
Increasing Access to Information
Meanwhile, at their request, the EPA is providing environmental groups information about separate TSCA-mandated activity involving 40 chemicals, she said.
By December, the agency must classify 20 chemicals as high priorities for risk evaluation, a process that could lead to regulation, and another 20 chemicals as low priorities, meaning no further agency action would be taken for now.
The environmental groups asked the EPA to provide more details about how the agency selected the 40 chemicals it is vetting, Dunn said. She said the agency will provide the information to the groups and place it in a public docket where it would be available to any interested party.
The EPA’s response, she said, illustrates the importance she places on working with the public.
“Public engagement is a priority of mine,” Dunn said. “My current role in chemicals and pesticides really requires an ear to so many different perspectives.”
Preemption
Dunn’s past experiences are proving helpful as she hears from others, she said.
Before being confirmed on Jan. 2 to her current post, Dunn served from January 2018 through January 2019 as administrator for EPA’s Region 1, which covers the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Prior posts included serving as the executive director and general counsel of the Environmental Council of the States, an organization of state regulators, during the negotiations that led up to the TSCA amendments.
An issue that triggered heated debate during those negotiations was state preemption, or the question of when states could continue to regulate certain chemicals and when EPA’s decisions would supersede the states’.
State preemption hasn’t arisen yet, because it didn’t apply to the first 10 chemicals the EPA is evaluating, Dunn said. But that issue is likely to arise with the next 20 chemicals the agency will begin to evaluate at the end of this year, she said.
The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, which amended TSCA, included a new concept in federal-state relations called “pause preemption.” Once EPA’s risk evaluation starts, states generally cannot regulate the same chemical the EPA is evaluating if the state regulation would address health concerns, chemical uses, and other issues the EPA is reviewing.
“As we continue to implement the statute, we will reach a place where pause preemption will come into play,” Dunn said. “We anticipate greater dialogue with the states at that time.”
Dunn also headed the Association of Clean Water Administrators from 2010 through April 2014, and she served as general counsel for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, organizations that represent publicly owned water and wastewater utilities.
The work with the states and the regulated community made her “very cognizant of what it’s like to be a stakeholder, to try to influence EPA, to ask EPA to take action, to wait for an EPA decision,” she said.
Voices From Dunn’s Past
Dunn’s approach to making decisions is to hear from all perspectives first, according to three people who worked with her before she came to the agency’s chemical safety office.
“I found her very collaborative, not confrontational,” Karl S. Coplan, a colleague of Dunn’s when she served in 2007-2010 as an associate dean at the Pace School of Law in New York state. “She’s very good about communicating with people and getting multiple views before making a decision.”
Nancy Stoner, president of the Potomac Riverkeeper Network, worked with Dunn on opposite sides of a policy around sanitary sewer overflow, or sewage spill, in the early 2000s. At the time, Stoner worked on water issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council while Dunn was at the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.
Despite their original opposing stances, the two women crafted a solution that the EPA accepted, Stoner said. Dunn later faced accusations of caving into environmental groups, but she stood by and defended the policies the clean water association had negotiated, Stoner said.
“She is a person with great integrity; totally trustworthy,” Stoner said.
—With assistance from Adam Allington and Susie Bruninga.
(Updated with more reporting throughout.)
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-risk-evaluation-critiques-set-for-june-epas-dunn-says

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EPA Pressed to Revise TSCA CBI Procedural Proposal

May 7, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has called on the US EPA to modify and begin a new consultation on its proposed TSCA confidential business information (CBI) procedural rule, to ensure it is consistent with a recent court ruling.
The NGO’s request stems from a 26 April decision with respect to its 2017 legal challenge of the agency’s TSCA inventory notification rule.
In the matter of the case, EDF v EPA, the DC Circuit court ruled that the agency had erred by not requiring companies to substantiate that a confidential chemical identity is not discoverable through reverse engineering. The court’s decision means the EPA will need to revisit its inventory notification rule to address this misstep.
But in a 2 May letter to the agency, the EDF has argued that this has implications beyond the 2017 rule.
More specifically, the NGO says that the EPA’s recently proposed CBI rule – which lays out how it will require substantiation of existing confidentiality claims and then review them – incorporates the same "flawed questions" that the court determined were inadequate in the notification rule.
The agency, it says, must revise these questions and the rule’s substantive standard for review to comply with the court’s ruling.
Moreover, the EDF points out that the proposed rule allows companies that provided voluntary substantiation as part of the inventory notification process to rely on this to support a confidentiality claim. But it argues that because the substantiation guidelines the companies were adhering to for their submissions were inadequate, then those businesses will need to provide more information to be compliant with the statute.
It has therefore also called on the EPA to modify its proposed rule to require companies that already voluntarily substantiated their claims to provide information to address the reverse engineering factor.
The consultation on the agency’s proposed CBI rule is currently scheduled to end on 24 June.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77165/epa-pressed-to-revise-tsca-cbi-procedural-proposal

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EPA Expands Asbestos SNUR While Curbing Risk Evaluation, Irking Critics

May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Maria Hegstad

EPA's recently finalized rule regulating renewed uses of asbestos expanded the number of applications subject to regulation but cut some of those applications from a related risk evaluation of existing uses, angering critics who say the agency is further narrowing any future toxics rule on existing uses and shows why a total ban on asbestos is needed.
Robert Sussman, a former EPA deputy administrator who is now counsel to the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), describes it as the “shrinking risk evaluation,” because of EPA's efforts to limit the uses of asbestos.
“Can we still see it?” Sussman asks about EPA's ongoing asbestos risk evaluation. “Is it still there? Yes, but it's pretty small because so many actual and potential pathways of exposure and risk are simply ignored. But at the end of the day, they want to be seen as doing something.”
His comments are directed in part at EPA's decision to subject certain abandoned asbestos applications in cement products, woven products, and packings to potential regulation under its recent significant new use rule (SNUR) should producers seek to revive them.
Since they are now subject to potential regulation under the SNUR, EPA dropped them from the scope of its pending risk evaluation of existing uses. “All the uses [of asbestos] included in the SNUR won’t be addressed in the [risk] evaluation and thus would not be banned under section 6,” of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which requires that EPA assess existing chemicals' risks before managing them, Sussman says.
Such criticisms intensify long-standing concerns that EPA is using its framework TSCA rules to limit the categories of uses it will consider in risk evaluations of existing chemicals, which generally precludes legacy uses and those that are already regulated by other EPA programs or other agencies. For example, firefighters are concerned that without evaluation of legacy uses of asbestos, they could face greater risks.
But many critics are now also raising concerns that EPA is using other mechanisms to limit the scope of its risk evaluation of existing uses, including by limiting the kinds of asbestos fibers it will study and the diseases it will consider.
Betsy Southerland, a former official in EPA's water office and a member of the Environmental Protection Network (EPN) of EPA alumni, is concerned by the agency's “very restrictive definition of asbestos fibers” and the “restricted consideration of disease, by limiting [the assessment] to lung cancer and mesothelioma” only.
“It all indicates the real focus is to ensure the chlor-alkali industry is not affected by the new TSCA,” she says.
As a result of such concerns, the critics are intensifying their calls for a ban on all uses of the mineral, an effort that will kick into high gear as the House Energy and Commerce Committee's environment panel is slated to hold a May 8 hearing on H.R. 1603, which would amend TSCA to require EPA to ban importation to and uses of asbestos in the U.S. within 12 months of passage.
The bill would also broaden EPA's narrow definition of asbestos, adding a number of additional fiber types. And it would require that EPA and the federal housing department assess existing 'legacy' asbestos in buildings around the country to determine quantity and risk.
The committee's leaders have already made clear that they are concerned that EPA is not going far enough in addressing asbestos. “It’s devastating that asbestos continues to kill nearly 40,000 Americans every year considering that [EPA] began the process of banning it 40 years ago,” Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), the full committee chairman, and Paul Tonko (D-NY), the subcommittee chairman, say in a May 2 statement. “The delays must end.”
Final SNUR
EPA's recently finalized SNUR, issued under TSCA section 5(e), generally requires manufacturers and others who want to revive abandoned used of the mineral to inform the agency in advance so it can review those uses and impose restrictions.
The final version of the rule adds at least two new categories of uses subject to the regulation, including a broad category of “all other uses of asbestos that are no longer ongoing and not already prohibited under TSCA,” as well as a category covering “friction materials."
By nature, EPA cannot use a SNUR to control an existing use of a chemical. Rather, the rules are used to give EPA time to review new or revived uses and determine whether they pose risks that must be mitigated.
“The Agency’s intent in this final SNUR is to cover all uses of asbestos that are neither ongoing in the United States nor already banned under TSCA,” the notice says.
Among the obsolete uses that would now be subject to regulation -- should producers seek to revive them -- are applications in cement products, woven products, and packings. “Because additional EPA research indicates that cement products, woven products, and packings are not ongoing uses, this significant new use rule includes them as significant new uses,” the final SNUR says.
But because EPA is now subjecting those applications to regulation under the section 5 SNUR, it dropped them from review in its pending risk evaluation of existing uses, an effort that will inform any future rules under section 6. “Cement products, woven products, and packings have been removed from the scope of the risk evaluation . . . because no information was found to confirm they are conditions of use,” the rule says.
As a result, the agency is drawing criticism from Sussman and others, who are concerned that the agency is further narrowing its risk evaluation of existing asbestos uses.
'Complete Evaluation'
Gary Timm, a former EPA toxics official who is also an EPN member, says EPA's narrowing of the risk evaluation eliminates an opportunity to do “a complete evaluation” of asbestos' uses “and whether under existing authorities controls are adequate."
If not, Timm says uses could be addressed either through TSCA or other statutes. Once EPA completes its section 6 risk evaluations of asbestos, the statue directs EPA to move on to risk management, up to and including a ban if uses do not meet the TSCA risk standard. “The SNUR and the section 6 actions should work complementarily to address all asbestos uses,” Timm says. “If so, great. If not, there was a real flaw” in how the overall assessment was conducted.
Further, Timm notes that some critics outside of the agency “don't appreciate the level of effort” required for a section 6 rulemaking, adding that “a SNUR can address [issues] more quickly. If there were no existing uses with a SNUR, people wouldn't object. It's when you reach into their pocketbook and address [ongoing uses] through section 6 that you really have to be sure you've done your homework.”
But Sussman is concerned because he doubts EPA will regulate revived uses under the SNUR.” EPA has the option under the law to determine that [a SNURed use of asbestos] is not likely to present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment and take no action.”
“The SNUR itself says nothing about whether EPA will make a finding [that a use of asbestos may present unreasonable risk],” Sussman says, adding that the Trump EPA's record so far in reviewing new chemical applications “doesn't give me a lot of confidence.”
“All the SNUR accomplishes is to assure that no new uses will be introduced without EPA knowing about them [in advance]. Then after that, we just don't know what they'll do.”
Sussman adds that among the changes in the final SNUR are its addition of some outdated uses that had been identified as ongoing in EPA's preliminary documents describing the accompanying risk evaluation of ongoing uses of asbestos the agency is undertaking. “All of a sudden, EPA now says [those uses] are obsolete,” he says. “The effect is to remove them from the risk evaluation and narrow it even further.”
EPA's explanation, that it made the change after further research, “is not totally convincing given” reports from the U.S. Geological Survey and earlier statements by EPA on these uses of asbestos, Sussman says. “They've done more digging but I question how adequate it is.” on existing uses and shows why a total ban on asbestos is needed.
Robert Sussman, a former EPA deputy administrator who is now counsel to the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), describes it as the “shrinking risk evaluation,” because of EPA's efforts to limit the uses of asbestos.
“Can we still see it?” Sussman asks about EPA's ongoing asbestos risk evaluation. “Is it still there? Yes, but it's pretty small because so many actual and potential pathways of exposure and risk are simply ignored. But at the end of the day, they want to be seen as doing something.”
His comments are directed in part at EPA's decision to subject certain abandoned asbestos applications in cement products, woven products, and packings to potential regulation under its recent significant new use rule (SNUR) should producers seek to revive them.
Since they are now subject to potential regulation under the SNUR, EPA dropped them from the scope of its pending risk evaluation of existing uses. “All the uses [of asbestos] included in the SNUR won’t be addressed in the [risk] evaluation and thus would not be banned under section 6,” of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which requires that EPA assess existing chemicals' risks before managing them, Sussman says.
Such criticisms intensify long-standing concerns that EPA is using its framework TSCA rules to limit the categories of uses it will consider in risk evaluations of existing chemicals, which generally precludes legacy uses and those that are already regulated by other EPA programs or other agencies. For example, firefighters are concerned that without evaluation of legacy uses of asbestos, they could face greater risks.
But many critics are now also raising concerns that EPA is using other mechanisms to limit the scope of its risk evaluation of existing uses, including by limiting the kinds of asbestos fibers it will study and the diseases it will consider.
Betsy Southerland, a former official in EPA's water office and a member of the Environmental Protection Network (EPN) of EPA alumni, is concerned by the agency's “very restrictive definition of asbestos fibers” and the “restricted consideration of disease, by limiting [the assessment] to lung cancer and mesothelioma” only.
“It all indicates the real focus is to ensure the chlor-alkali industry is not affected by the new TSCA,” she says.
As a result of such concerns, the critics are intensifying their calls for a ban on all uses of the mineral, an effort that will kick into high gear as the House Energy and Commerce Committee's environment panel is slated to hold a May 8 hearing on H.R. 1603, which would amend TSCA to require EPA to ban importation to and uses of asbestos in the U.S. within 12 months of passage.
The bill would also broaden EPA's narrow definition of asbestos, adding a number of additional fiber types. And it would require that EPA and the federal housing department assess existing 'legacy' asbestos in buildings around the country to determine quantity and risk.
The committee's leaders have already made clear that they are concerned that EPA is not going far enough in addressing asbestos. “It’s devastating that asbestos continues to kill nearly 40,000 Americans every year considering that [EPA] began the process of banning it 40 years ago,” Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), the full committee chairman, and Paul Tonko (D-NY), the subcommittee chairman, say in a May 2 statement. “The delays must end.”
Final SNUR
EPA's recently finalized SNUR, issued under TSCA section 5(e), generally requires manufacturers and others who want to revive abandoned used of the mineral to inform the agency in advance so it can review those uses and impose restrictions.
The final version of the rule adds at least two new categories of uses subject to the regulation, including a broad category of “all other uses of asbestos that are no longer ongoing and not already prohibited under TSCA,” as well as a category covering “friction materials."
By nature, EPA cannot use a SNUR to control an existing use of a chemical. Rather, the rules are used to give EPA time to review new or revived uses and determine whether they pose risks that must be mitigated.
“The Agency’s intent in this final SNUR is to cover all uses of asbestos that are neither ongoing in the United States nor already banned under TSCA,” the notice says.
Among the obsolete uses that would now be subject to regulation -- should producers seek to revive them -- are applications in cement products, woven products, and packings. “Because additional EPA research indicates that cement products, woven products, and packings are not ongoing uses, this significant new use rule includes them as significant new uses,” the final SNUR says.
But because EPA is now subjecting those applications to regulation under the section 5 SNUR, it dropped them from review in its pending risk evaluation of existing uses, an effort that will inform any future rules under section 6. “Cement products, woven products, and packings have been removed from the scope of the risk evaluation . . . because no information was found to confirm they are conditions of use,” the rule says.
As a result, the agency is drawing criticism from Sussman and others, who are concerned that the agency is further narrowing its risk evaluation of existing asbestos uses.
'Complete Evaluation'
Gary Timm, a former EPA toxics official who is also an EPN member, says EPA's narrowing of the risk evaluation eliminates an opportunity to do “a complete evaluation” of asbestos' uses “and whether under existing authorities controls are adequate."
If not, Timm says uses could be addressed either through TSCA or other statutes. Once EPA completes its section 6 risk evaluations of asbestos, the statue directs EPA to move on to risk management, up to and including a ban if uses do not meet the TSCA risk standard. “The SNUR and the section 6 actions should work complementarily to address all asbestos uses,” Timm says. “If so, great. If not, there was a real flaw” in how the overall assessment was conducted.
Further, Timm notes that some critics outside of the agency “don't appreciate the level of effort” required for a section 6 rulemaking, adding that “a SNUR can address [issues] more quickly. If there were no existing uses with a SNUR, people wouldn't object. It's when you reach into their pocketbook and address [ongoing uses] through section 6 that you really have to be sure you've done your homework.”
But Sussman is concerned because he doubts EPA will regulate revived uses under the SNUR.” EPA has the option under the law to determine that [a SNURed use of asbestos] is not likely to present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment and take no action.”
“The SNUR itself says nothing about whether EPA will make a finding [that a use of asbestos may present unreasonable risk],” Sussman says, adding that the Trump EPA's record so far in reviewing new chemical applications “doesn't give me a lot of confidence.”
“All the SNUR accomplishes is to assure that no new uses will be introduced without EPA knowing about them [in advance]. Then after that, we just don't know what they'll do.”
Sussman adds that among the changes in the final SNUR are its addition of some outdated uses that had been identified as ongoing in EPA's preliminary documents describing the accompanying risk evaluation of ongoing uses of asbestos the agency is undertaking. “All of a sudden, EPA now says [those uses] are obsolete,” he says. “The effect is to remove them from the risk evaluation and narrow it even further.”
EPA's explanation, that it made the change after further research, “is not totally convincing given” reports from the U.S. Geological Survey and earlier statements by EPA on these uses of asbestos, Sussman says. “They've done more digging but I question how adequate it is.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-expands-asbestos-snur-while-curbing-risk-evaluation-irking-critics

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Industry Raises Fears Over EPA's Asbestos Shift But Largely Backs SNUR

May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Maria Hegstad

Industry lawyers who represent chemical and other industries are generally backing EPA's recently expanded significant new use rule (SNUR) governing legacy uses of asbestos, though like environmentalists, some industry attorneys are raising concerns that EPA has shifted certain uses from a related evaluation of ongoing uses to the SNUR.
EPA's recently finalized SNUR, issued under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) section 5(e), generally requires manufacturers and others who want to revive an obsolete use of the mineral to inform the agency in advance so it can review those uses and impose restrictions as deemed necessary. By nature, EPA cannot use a SNUR to control an existing use of a chemical. Rather, the rules are used to give EPA time to review new or revived uses and determine whether they pose risks that must be mitigated.
The final version of the SNUR adds at least two new categories of uses subject to the regulation, including a broad category of “all other uses of asbestos that are no longer ongoing and not already prohibited under TSCA,” as well as a category covering “friction materials."
Among other things, EPA decided to subject certain abandoned asbestos applications in cement products, woven products, and packings to potential regulation under its SNUR, but at the same time, dropped those uses from its ongoing risk evaluation of current uses of asbestos that could be subject to regulation under TSCA section 6.
The shift has angered environmentalists, who say the agency is further narrowing any future TSCA rule on existing uses and shows why a total ban on asbestos is needed. EPA has a “shrinking risk evaluation,” says Robert Sussman, a former EPA deputy administrator who is now counsel to the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
But the shift is also raising concerns among some industry lawyers. “While EPA has not yet published its draft risk evaluation for asbestos, the SNUR provides important insight into how EPA’s approach has changed since it published its problem formulation document nearly one year ago,” attorneys with the law firm Hunton Williams Kurth write in an April 18 blog post.
“This shift in EPA’s approach raises significant questions about whether and to what extent other changes have been made since EPA released its problem formulation document, meaning that companies should be on high alert when EPA releases its draft risk evaluation, which could lead to further regulations,” the post states.
Despite that concern, the lawyers generally back EPA's SNUR, saying it effectively bans those uses from returning to the marketplace by requiring that EPA be given the opportunity to 'evaluate each intended use . . . for potential risks to the health and the environment and take any necessary regulatory action, which may include a prohibition.'”
Other chemical industry lawyers share that view. In its April 18 memorandum, the law firm Bergeson & Campbell praises EPA's “strong and decisive action under the final SNUR effectively to prohibit all non-ongoing conditions of use of asbestos.”
The firm acknowledges that the “prohibition is conditioned by the ability for a person to submit a significant new use notice (SNUN), the legal effect of a SNUR was considerably strengthened by new TSCA which explicitly requires that EPA review and make a determination on the proposed significant new use and take any actions required by that determination, including any needed restrictions or prohibitions. Furthermore, new TSCA makes clear that commercialization cannot proceed until EPA has met these requirements. With this statutory infrastructure in place, we believe that it is appropriate to characterize this regulatory action as having the effect of a prohibition.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-raises-fears-over-epas-asbestos-shift-largely-backs-snur

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Chemical Management News

Governments Endorse Global PFOA Ban, with Some Exemptions

May 7, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Cheryl Hogue

A widely used industrial fluorochemical that is linked to cancer and pollutes drinking water around the world is on its way to a global phaseout.
More than 180 countries agreed May 3 to ban production and use of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), its salts, and PFOA-related compounds under the international Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The International Agency for Research on Cancer considers PFOA possibly carcinogenic to humans. Exposure to the substance is also linked to hormonal disruption.
At a meeting of Stockholm Convention treaty partners in Geneva, governments carved out exemptions that allow some applications of PFOA to continue, including use in fire-fighting foams—a practice that has contaminated groundwater in many areas around the globe. Tons of these foams are in storage, at the ready to help first responders douse petroleum-fueled fires. Some of these foams also contain another fluorochemical, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), which has been tightly restricted but not banned under the Stockholm Convention for a decade. At their recent meeting, treaty partners agreed to ban the use of firefighting foams containing PFOA or PFOS in training exercises and to prohibit the production, import, or export of foams with either or both chemicals.
Governments created an exemption for use of a PFOA-related chemical used to produce pharmaceuticals, says Pamela Miller, cochair of a coalition of public interest groups, the International POPs Elimination Network. The substance is perfluorooctyl iodide, which can degrade to PFOA. It is used to produce perfluorooctyl bromide, which is a processing aid in making some pharmaceuticals. Although the exemption for perfluorooctyl iodide will expire no later than 2036, treaty partners will review it and could potentially eliminate it before then, Miller tells C&EN.
Treaty partners also gave global, five-year exemptions for PFOA and its chemical cousins used in semiconductor manufacturing, worker-protection textiles, medical devices, and photographic coatings on films. They granted additional PFOA exemptions to China, the European Union, and Iran for PFOA use in production of fluoropolymers, medical textiles, and electrical wires.
In addition, governments reduced the number of uses allowed for PFOS, its salts, and a related compound, perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride, under the Stockholm Convention. They eliminated exemptions for these substances in aviation hydraulic fluid and other specialty applications. However, they allowed use of the pesticide sulfluramid, which degrades into PFOS, to continue with no deadline for phaseout. Applied to control leaf-cutting ants, the insecticide is made in Brazil and used across Latin America and the Caribbean, causing PFOS pollution.
“The continued use of sulfluramid in agriculture with no time limit protects Brazilian chemical companies, not human health and the environment,” said Fernando Bejarano of the International POPs Elimination Network Hub for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The US has signed the Stockholm Convention and attends negotiations related to the pact, but it is not an official treaty partner.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/Governments-endorse-global-PFOA-ban/97/web/2019/05

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House Energy Panel to Move Fluorochemical Bills, Rep. Tonko Says

May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Tiffany Stecker

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is ready to take up several bills to clean up a widespread class of chemicals linked to cancer, immune system deficiencies, and thyroid and liver problems.
Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), the panel’s environment subcommittee chairman, said he will “in a matter of weeks” hold a legislative hearing on bills related to poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of thousands of heat- and water-resistant chemicals.
“We need targeted policy that will set goals and standards so that we can move forward,” Tonko said May 6 at a press conference in Fort Washington, Pa. The EPA “has punted on this issue,” Tonko added. “We need them to get more serious on this issue.”
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), whose district battled lead-in-water contamination in Flint, added that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) intends to move legislation on the issue this Congress.
The press event was held in Montgomery County, Pa., near the location of two former military bases where PFAS leaked into neighboring drinking water supplies.
“We must address the fact that we have a serious problem,” Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), whose congressional district covers Montgomery County.
Dean said she will soon introduce a bill phasing out the chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Specifically, the bill would ban the production of the compounds and require the EPA to regulate the disposal.
EPA Draft Guidance Issued
Last month the EPA removed an emergency trigger from its guidance on groundwater contamination that could limit the agency’s power to intervene in efforts to clean up PFAS.
The April 25 draft interim guidance for groundwater that contains PFOA and PFOS—just two among thousands of PFAS compounds—recommends but doesn’t require cleanup when the chemicals are found at a concentration of 70 parts per trillion or higher.
Lawmakers have introduced at least 15 bills in both House and Senate this Congress to address the problem.
The standard “should not be based on convenience, it should be based on science,” Kildee said at the event.
The manufacturers of PFAS, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Defense have known about the health effects of the chemicals for decades.
The chemicals have been found near military installations around the county but are also present in nonstick and stain-resistant coatings, food packaging, and carpets. They are also part of some firefighting foams to extinguish jet fuel fires because the chemicals resist high temperatures.
Tests have found PFOS, PFOA, and other fluorinated chemicals in water supplies and soil samples across the nation.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/house-energy-panel-to-move-fluorochemical-bills-rep-tonko-says

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Three Controversial Chemicals Top EPA’s Pesticide To-Do List

May 6, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Adam Allington

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to review new science on a number of high-profile pesticides in the coming months to support any possible decisions.
In a May 6 interview with Bloomberg Environment, Alexandra Dapolito Dunn, EPA’s assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, said the agency won’t shy away from re-registering disputed pesticides, as long as they’re based on “evolving science.”
The agency is particularly focused on chlorpyrifos, dicamba, and glyphosate, all of which have come under increased public scrutiny over claims they pose both ecological, and health-related risks.
Front and center is the popular pesticide chlorpyrifos, which lawmakers in several states are trying to ban, while the EPA has sought keep it on the market. The pesticide is used on a variety of vegetable, fruit, and nut crops.
Chlorpyrifos Under Scrutiny
Chlorpyrifos was approved for re-registration in 2006. However, in 2017 EPA recommended putting aside the conclusions reached by its own staff scientists and rejected an Obama-era proposal to ban chlorpyrifos for use in fields and orchards.
“We do stand behind the regulatory decision of 2006 and again want to be informed by any new science that is coming our way,” Dunn said. “It’s been extensive. And certainly our activities around chlorpyrifos extend to the other organophosphates as well.”
Court Order for Action
Chlorpyrifos is a member of the organophosphate class of pesticides that kill insects on contact by attacking their nervous systems. Several studies have linkedchlorpyrifos exposure to developmental issues in children.
On April 19, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit gave the EPA 90 days, until mid-July, to take action on demands from environmental groups to ban the chemical, which is primarily made by DowDupont Inc.'s agriculture division, Corteva Agriscience.
“Certainly, responding to the court on chlorpyrifos is front and center right now,” said Dunn.
While environmental groups are pressuring EPA for a full ban on food crops, Dunn seemed to indicate the agency still has several years to review updated science.
“We have committed to prioritizing the re-registration of chlorpyrifos. Under the statute [the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act], we have until October 2022,” she said. “We recognize that there’s a great desire for us to make a decision before that time and we are moving as quickly as possible with regard to making a scientifically-based decision.”
Studies on Brain Damage
Any decision that keeps chlorpyrifos on the market would likely force the agency back to court to defend that decision on its merits.
The agency has been fighting a lawsuit from a coalition of environmental groups for years over concerns chlorpyrifos posed a threat to children’s health.
“EPA can’t hide behind a decision that was made back in 2006, the court already said as much when EPA made that same claim in 2015,” said Patti Goldman, an attorney with Earthjustice serving as co-counsel for a coalition of environmental health groups suing EPA over the pesticide.
She said the 2006 registration of the pesticide, which kept it on the market, didn’t consider damage to children’s brains, which was shown in subsequent studies.
“When EPA did finally look at this, it found this pesticide unsafe,” she said.
Dicamba Complaints of Drift
On dicamba, many state regulators have been bracing for 2019 to be another year of intense complaints about off-target damage from the herbicide as it drifts onto neighboring soybean and other fields. The EPA in October said it would extend the label through the 2020 application season. That would apply to dicamba-based herbicides XtendiMax from Bayer, FeXapan from Corteva, and Engenia from BASF.
The EPA also announced several changes to the label, including the time of application, record-keeping, and wind speed, and only allowed certified applicators to buy and apply the product.
“This is one of those deals where there just doesn’t seem to be an end in sight,” said Tim Creger, pesticide program manager at the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, speaking at a conference of pesticide State Lead Agencies on March 5.
Creger told Bloomberg Environment that in 2018 Nebraska saw the number of dicamba complaints increase, and he thinks there’s a high chance that will happen again in 2019.
When asked what another year of numerous reports of off-target damage would mean to dicamba’s future, Dunn said the agency is walking a fine line between providing access to an important tool for farmers, and protecting the rights of other stakeholders.
“We certainly updated the label to add restrictions to minimize drift—that is important,” she said, adding that the agency and dicamba makers were also working on field testing during this growing season.
“That information that we will receive at the end of this year will be extremely helpful to us to figure out what the next steps are for dicamba,” she said.
Glyphosate Lawsuits Complicate Safety Review
Despite being the most commercially popular herbicide on the market, glyphosate has been as the center of a dispute on whether exposure causes cancer.
The pesticide is the active ingredient in Roundup, produced by Bayer AG, which acquired the brand after its 2018 purchase of St. Louis-based Monsanto. Thousands of lawsuits filed in recent years have alleged that the herbicide caused cancer.
But in an interim registration review on April 30, the EPA found that glyphosate poses no risk to human health when used according to the label.
“The label is the law, the label is the roadmap for safety,” Dunn said.
She said the agency did find some ecological risks and has proposed some mitigation measures that would reduce effects on pollinators, aquatic plants, and other species. But she also said communicating glyphosate’s safety has become harder with so much media coverage of the court cases.
“We acknowledge that there will always be a larger public conversation around pesticides,” she said. “EPA is committed to making science-based decisions and emphasizing to the public how we make those decisions.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/three-controversial-chemicals-top-epas-pesticide-to-do-list

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Legislation to Ban 'Cyanide Bombs' Resurfaces

May 7, 2019 | E&E Daily

By Philip Athey

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation last week to ban two poisons used to protect livestock from predators.
The House version is H.R. 2471 from Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and seven co-sponsors, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) is pushing Senate companion S. 1301.
The first poison, Compound 1080, is an odorless and tasteless chemical used in collars placed on sheep and goats. Those collars are designed to release the poison if pierced by the teeth of a coyote or wolf.
Lawmakers are concerned the compound can leak if the animals wearing the collars bump into anything sharp, potentially harming pets and humans who accidentally encounter the substance.
The bill also seeks to ban sodium cyanide used in so-called M-44 devices, coated in bait, that when activated release the poison up to 5 feet into the air.
"Cyanide bombs have no place on public land," Gaetz said in a press release, adding that "more humane" methods already exist to protect livestock.
DeFazio warned of the dangers these devices pose to humans and pets. "It is only a matter of time before they kill someone," he said in a statement. "The federal government should not be using these extreme measures in the name of so-called 'predator control.'"
Lawmakers have introduced the proposal with backing of environmental groups in previous congresses, but it has failed to become law because of support for the devices from some ranchers and Western lawmakers,
Critics of the predator-killing methods have been making some inroads. The Agriculture Department stopped using M-44 devices in Idaho after a pet dog died when it triggered a cyanide trap that was intended for coyotes (Greenwire, April 11, 2017).
Greens in 2017 sued the Interior Department to make sure the devices are not hurting animals protected under the Endangered Species Act (E&E News PM, April 4, 2017).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/05/07/stories/1060286493

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Energy News

EPA Says Final ACE Rule Coming in June

May 7, 2019 | PoliticoPro

By Alex Guillén

EPA plans to finalize the Affordable Clean Energy rule — its replacement for the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan — in June, the agency revealed in a court filing today.
“EPA’s review of the Clean Power Plan continues to be a high priority for the Agency, and EPA is committed to completing final rulemaking action as expeditiously as practicable. EPA’s intention and expectation is that the Agency will be in a position to take final action in June 2019,” the agency wrote in a status update for the lawsuits over the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan.
The June goal is the most specific deadline EPA has offered so far. The agency had previously said it expected to finish the rule in the “first part” of 2019.
The OMB began reviewing the final ACE rule on April 26.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/05/epa-says-final-ace-rule-coming-in-june-3202971

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Lawmakers Seek Ban on New Fossil Fuel Facilities

May 7, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)

Two New York state lawmakers are introducing legislation that would ban the development of new fossil fuel plants or pipelines as part of the state's energy system.
The bill would also direct state energy officials to create a plan for moving the state's electrical grid entirely off fossil fuels by no later than 2040.
The measure is sponsored by state Sen. Jen Metzger and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic, both Democrats. The bill is one of several under consideration this year that seek to wean the state off fossil fuels.
In January, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a goal for the state to derive 100% of its energy from renewable sources by 2040, the nation's most aggressive clean energy goal.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/05/07/stories/1060285865

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Oregon Denies Water Permit for Jordan Cove LNG Project

May 7, 2019 | PoliticoPro

By Alex Guillén

Oregon today said it will not certify the proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas terminal under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, making it the latest state to reject a fossil fuel project by using its authority under the landmark federal water law.
The decision by the state's Department of Environmental Quality is a blow for Canadian developer Pembina Pipeline Corp., and could also escalate tensions between blue states that have used their Section 401 powers to block energy projects and the pro-fossil fuel Trump administration, which is moving to limit that authority.
“DEQ does not have a reasonable assurance that the construction and operation of the project will comply with applicable Oregon water quality standards,” the agency wrote in its decision letter.
The state said it was specifically concerned about the project's effects on water temperature and sediment in streams and wetlands, as well as the risk that drilling materials from its construction could pollute the Coos Bay estuary.
Pembina could re-apply for 401 certification but would have to either change its plans or provide further data to satisfy state regulators.
Environmentalists have long opposed the Jordan Cove project because of the climate change effects from increased exports of natural gas. FERC estimated in March that emissions from operating the pipeline and terminal would amount to 2.14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. Such emissions would make it harder for Oregon to meet its own greenhouse gas emissions goals.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/05/oregon-denies-water-permit-for-jordan-cove-lng-project-3203209

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Antero Gets Boost from More Appalachian NGL Exports

May 7, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Jamison Cocklin

Antero Resources Corp. gained additional access to export markets for its natural gas liquids during the first quarter, which significantly boosted its free cash flow in a trend that’s expected to continue this year as it ramps-up shipments bound for overseas markets.
Partial service finally started on Mariner East (ME) 2 as the quarter got underway, allowing anchor shipper Antero to send nearly 30% of its Appalachian NGL volumes to the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex near Philadelphia for export. The company realized a 17 cent/gallon premium to Mont Belvieu pricing on its Marcus Hook volumes.
Sunoco Pipeline LP in late December started limited service on ME 2 with a smaller converted pipeline that once moved refined products after Pennsylvania regulators halted work on a stretch of the mainline when sinkholes formed near it last year. Antero, the nation’s largest NGL producer, said it expects to move 50% of its liquids on the line for export through the remainder of the year.
The company has 50,000 b/d of firm capacity on the system and has the option to double that. Overall, about 145,000 b/d are moving on the system. If more of ME 2’s designed 275,000 b/d capacity comes online, Antero said it would increase its shipments. CEO Paul Rady said the price uplift helped increase the company’s cash flow by $20 million during the first quarter.
“I think we feel really good about the NGL markets, and think that's going to continue to strengthen, and so that makes up for softness in gas in the near term,” added CFO Glen Warren during a call with analysts last week to discuss first quarter results.
Antero produced 3.099 Bcfe/d during the first quarter, up 30% compared to last year and down slightly from 3.2 Bcfe/d in 4Q2018. While ME 1 in Pennsylvania was offline for most of the first quarter after it was shut down to address another sinkhole that formed near it, limiting additional NGL transport, Antero rejected ethane into the gas stream on weak prices. That cut 50 MMcfe/d of production for the period.
The company still gained on the operational front, however, as it reported more efficiencies. Antero drilled an average of 5,300 feet per day during the quarter, and set what management believes is a world record for a horizontal well by drilling 9,184 feet of lateral in 24 hours. Such efficiencies have allowed management to cut back to four drilling rigs and three completion crews for the rest of the year from previous activity levels of five rigs and four crews. While its full-year production guidance range of 3.150-3.250 Bcfe/d remains unchanged, the company slashed its drilling and completions budget by about 3% to $1.3-1.375 billion.
Antero’s average realized first quarter price, excluding hedges, increased 3% year/year to $3.65/Mcfe. Including hedges, the company’s average price was $4.00/Mcfe, down by 1% compared to the same time last year.
Year/year NGL production increased 44% to 148,003 b/d and accounted for 35% of total produce revenue before hedges. Revenue came in at $1 billion for the first quarter, or the same as it was in 1Q2018. Revenue included a $174 million non-cash loss on unsettled commodity derivatives.
Antero reported first quarter net income of $979 million ($3.17/share), compared to net income of $15 million (5 cents) in the year-ago period. The company completed a transaction in March to simplify its corporate structure, and Antero Midstream Partners has since been deconsolidated from its results.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/118283-antero-gets-boost-from-more-appalachian-ngl-exports

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Court Weighs Export Question in FERC Approvals

May 7, 2019 | E&E Energywire

By Pamela King

Federal judges yesterday scrutinized the government's approval of a natural gas pipeline slated to send some of its fuel to Canada.
Challengers of the Nexus pipeline through Ohio and Michigan say the project improperly relies on exports to meet the requirements for a permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC's approval, formally known as a certificate of public convenience and necessity, allows developers to take private land for public use.
Nexus opponents yesterday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the pipeline's certificate and find that its taking of private land violated the U.S. Constitution. The case could set a new precedent on the legality of eminent domain for export-related projects.
"FERC is trying to do indirectly what it cannot do directly," said Carolyn Elefant, an attorney representing the city of Oberlin, Ohio, which is in the pipeline's path.
The commission and Nexus Gas Transmission LLC, an intervenor in the case, defended the authorization during rounds of pointed questioning from the three-judge panel.
"Why shouldn't that be troubling to us?" Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, asked as he pressed FERC's lawyer to explain how a pipeline slated for export could be consistent with the Natural Gas Act.
The statute, which outlines FERC's certificate process and right of eminent domain, stipulates that the commission may approve projects in service of interstate commerce. That authority does not extend to foreign commerce, Elefant argued yesterday.
Judge Sri Srinivasan, an Obama appointee, asked her to specify the point at which export capacity becomes an issue.
At minimum, Elefant argued, FERC should have to think critically about requiring U.S. landowners to give up their property for an export project.
"The kicker really is eminent domain," she said.
When FERC last year declined to revisit its authorization of the Nexus pipeline, Democratic Commissioner Richard Glick wrote that the order flouted both the Natural Gas Act and National Environmental Policy Act.
Nexus, Glick wrote last summer, had secured contracts for less than 60% of its capacity.
"I do not believe the Commission can depend on this factor alone to find need, particularly when evidence in the record contradicts the Commission's assertion of future growth in demand," he wrote in his dissent, which also included criticisms of FERC's climate analysis for the project.
FERC attorney Carol Banta told the D.C. Circuit the commission took a "sliding scale approach" to determining the pipeline's need.
Because the vast majority of the project was placed on existing rights of way, the pipeline only requires a "small use of eminent domain," she said.
Wilkins was not swayed by the argument.
"That's someone's property that's being taken," he said.
Even if only 0.1% of a project requires eminent domain, the judge said, the taking must be found to be for a public use.
"I don't understand where you're going with this argument," Wilkins said to Banta.
The FERC attorney pointed to a December finding from the D.C. Circuit rejecting arguments that a Massachusetts project expected to send half of its gas to Canada did not meet the requirements for a FERC certificate — provided that exports to countries with free-trade agreements are "consistent with the public interest."
"[G]iven that much of the gas will be used for domestic consumption, petitioners have not identified why granting the certificate in this case would not still advance the public convenience and necessity, even if a portion of the gas is ultimately diverted for export," the court wrote in an unpublished judgment.
In cases where the court wishes to establish precedent on a particular question, judicial panels may choose to write published opinions, according to the D.C. Circuit handbook.
Wilkins asked Banta to assume that the court is not bound by the December judgment. He asked both Banta and David Super, a Bracewell LLP attorney representing Nexus, to imagine a scenario in which FERC is asked to authorize a project that is fully committed to exports.
No such example exists, they both argued.
"You really can't know where the gas is going to end up," Super said.
Judge Judith Rogers, a Clinton pick, grilled Super on that point.
"I'm back in the real world," she said, noting that even FERC doesn't deny that gas transported by the line could land in Canadian markets.
She added that court filings indicating Nexus had only procured subscriptions for 59% of the pipeline's capacity "boggle the mind" when held up against FERC's determination of need for the project.
"Is the tail wagging the dog?" Rogers asked.
Super noted during arguments that Nexus is now 71% subscribed.
The court is expected to issue its decision in the coming month
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/05/07/stories/1060286929

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Bipartisan Bill Would Encourage Technology Commercialization

May 7, 2019 | E&E News PM

By Philip Athey

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation last week to ease the transfer of energy technologies developed in government labs to the private sector.
The bills would amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to create a Department of Energy "technology maturation program" to provide funding for developing innovations that "exhibit promising commercial potential."
New Mexico Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich sponsored S. 1286 with Sens. Cory Gardner, (R-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). Its House companion, H.R. 2495, is backed by New Mexico Democratic Reps. Deb Haaland and Ben Ray Luján.
The goal is to drive innovation by having DOE develop a product to a point where it becomes an attractive investment to private companies, who would then pour private dollars into finalizing the technology.
Heinrich touted the bill as a "bipartisan effort to bridge the gap between lab research and development by improving the process of transferring innovative technology."
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said that, if passed, the bill would "drive economic growth, innovation, and job creation, and ensure our national labs are able to reach their full potential."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/05/06/stories/1060286077

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Anadarko Accepts Occidental Bid; Chevron Can Boost Bid or Walk

May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Rachel Adams-Heard and Joe Carroll

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s board has declared Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s sweetened $38 billion takeover “superior,” allowing Chevron Corp. to either boost its offer or walk away with a $1 billion breakup fee.
The announcement by Anadarko, which had rebuffed several prior bids from Occidental, comes almost a month after it agreed to be purchased by Chevron for $33 billion. Chevron has so far refused to increase its offer, saying its proposal is a better long-term option for Anadarko shareholders.
The takeover of Anadarko has been a rare public fight for an oil industry that hasn’t seen many bidding wars. Occidental Chief Executive Officer Vicki Hollub’s recruitment of billionaire Warren Buffett and an $8.8 billion accord to offload African oil and gas fields to Total SA appeared to have been key milestones in winning the board’s favor. Anadarko directors had previously chosen Chevron’s offer even though it was substantially cheaper than that of Occidental, which, as a smaller company, would have to take on much more leverage to do the deal.
Chevron CEO Mike Wirth has signaled he’s willing to end his pursuit of a deal if the price gets so high that it imperils investor returns. “We strongly believe that the combination of our two companies create superior long-term value for shareholders of the combined company,” Wirth said on an April 26 earnings conference call.
While buying Anadarko would expand the producer’s presence in the Permian Basin, which is now the world’s largest oil patch, there are other operators in the region that Chevron could acquire. Chevron also has existing ambitious growth plans for the Permian.
Houston-based Occidental over the weekend pressed to alleviate any remaining concerns from Anadarko. It said Sunday that 78 percent of the deal will be paid in cash, up from 50 percent, and it eliminated the need for a shareholder vote, which had previously been cited as a sticking point for Anadarko’s directors.
“With the OXY deal looking safer for APC to accept, I’d say this may force CVX to match the OXY bid or lose out on these terrific assets,” said Bill Nygren, chief investment officer of Harris Associates LP, which manages $120 billion and owns about 3 percent of Anadarko.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/anadarko-accepts-occidental-bid-chevron-can-boost-bid-or-walk

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Chemical Security News

Explosion Rocks Silicones Plant

May 6, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Marc S. Reisch

Investigators are now sifting through the rubble and are trying to make sense of the unusual explosion and fire on the night of May 3 that left three people dead at a US silicones manufacturing plant. The accident, at the AB Specialty Silicones plant in Waukegan, Illinois—about 40 miles north of Chicago—shook nearby homes, made lights flicker, and scattered debris up to a mile away.
According to local news accounts, the blast occurred at around nightfall. Residents felt the ground shake and heard a loud boom. As local fire crews arrived, flames engulfed the plant.
First responders initially found one employee dead from the explosion. They took four others to the hospital, where one worker later died. After the blaze, two employees, a lab technician and a supervisor, were still missing. However, the body of one of the missing workers, who the authorities have not yet identified, was recovered on May 5. Nine people in all were in the plant at the time of the explosion.
In a statement posted on the AB website, general manager Mac Penman said, “We are shocked and heartbroken by the tragedy that occurred in our plant on May 3rd. We are trying our best to support all of the members of our AB family as we attempt to process this terrible loss together.”
Waukegan authorities indicate that their inquiry into exactly what happened at AB will take some time. Joining them will be inspectors from the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which said it dispatched its team to the AB site on May 5.
Explosions at silicone manufacturing facilities are not frequent, but they have happened. In 2001, specialty silicones maker Gelest lost its Tullytown, Pennsylvania, plant in a devastating explosion and fire. No loss of life occurred in that incident, but two people suffered chemical burns. The company did not reveal the cause of the accident.
In 2009 when C&EN visited the rebuilt plant in Morrisville, Pa., the company proudly showed off design features meant to minimize potential fire and explosion hazards.
AB itself manufactures a variety of vinyl, hydride, phenyl, and fluro-functional silicones used in a variety of items including personal care, dental, medical, and electronics products. But while silicon, the raw material for silicones, is not flammable, a number of organosilicones the firm makes are flammable, toxic, or corrosive. However, investigators have not said these materials are a possible cause of the AB accident at this time.
Loss of life at smaller US chemical firms is also unusual. In 1995, a mixing accident caused an explosion at Napp Technologies and killed four workers at the firm’s Lodi, New Jersey, plant. In 1999, an explosion during the manufacture of the electronic chemical hydroxylamine killed five people at the Concept Science plant outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. And in 2013, a fertilizer plant explosion killed a dozen people at West Fertilizer just north of Waco, Texas.
AB describes itself as a specialty silicone chemical manufacturer with over 20 years in business. The firm’s main production site in Waukegan also houses a research and development lab and nearly 19,000 m2 of warehouse space.
https://cen.acs.org/safety/industrial-safety/Explosion-rocks-silicones-plant/97/web/2019/05

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Fatal Illinois Chemical Explosion’s Cause Under Investigation

May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Sam Pearson

An explosion at an Illinois specialty chemicals plant that killed three workers May 3 is prompting investigations by federal authorities.
A team from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, a federal agency that investigates the nation’s most serious chemical incidents, was set to arrive at the AB Specialty Silicones LLC plant in Waukegan, Ill., May 6, spokeswoman Hillary Cohen said in an email to Bloomberg Law. The safety board is arriving to the scene of what appeared to be a violent explosion, with photographs and television images showing the plant almost completely destroyed.
AB Specialty Silicones manufactures silicone-based raw materials, vinyl polymers, and resins for the cosmetics, dental, and medical industries and other uses, its website and LinkedIn page state. A spokeswoman didn’t respond to Bloomberg Law’s email requesting comment, and phone numbers listed for the company weren’t working May 6. A statement posted on the company’s website attributed to its general manager, Mac Penman, said the company was “shocked and heartbroken by the tragedy that occurred in our plant.”
Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are interviewing plant managers, employees, and others who may have witnessed the incident, Scott Allen, a spokesman for the agency’s regional office in Chicago, told Bloomberg Law in an email. Under federal law, OSHA has six months to complete its investigation and issue citations that could carry monetary penalties. The plant could also face scrutiny from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency or the federal EPA, depending on which environmental standards, if any, have been violated.
Local authorities have recovered the bodies of two workers and are in the process of recovering a third, Lake County, Ill., Coroner Howard Cooper told Bloomberg Law. All others present at the time of the blast have been accounted for, Cooper said. He said the office will be using dental records to identify at least one of the employees.
Little information was immediately available on the chemical holdings at the site. The plant has no prior OSHA citations for violations of worker safety laws, Allen said. EPA data shows no violations of air, water, or hazardous waste laws at the site, either. A spokeswoman for the EPA’s regional office in Chicago didn’t respond to a phone call and email message from Bloomberg Law. A spokeswoman for the Illinois EPA in Springfield didn’t respond to an email requesting comment.
The company has a strong relationship with local first responders and has participated in emergency training exercises, Steven Lenzi, Waukegan’s fire marshal, told Bloomberg Law. Lenzi said the plant used “all different sorts of proprietary types of products” to manufacture silicone.
Firefighters anticipate at least a month after recovery operations cease to determine the cause of the blast, Lenzi said. The federal safety board’s investigation will also seek to determine the cause of the explosion. The CSB’s investigations typically take a year or more.
A New Windsor, N.Y., chemical plant operated by cosmetics manufacturer Verla International Ltd. exploded in November 2017, killing one worker and injuring 125 other employees and first responders. OSHA later issued 112 serious citations carrying proposed fines of $281,220. The fines were later reduced to $209,390 in a formal settlement with the company, OSHA records show.
Cohen said it’s too soon to know if the incidents are similar.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/fatal-illinois-chemical-explosions-cause-under-investigation

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It’s up to All of Us to Prevent Another Chemical Plant Fire

May 7, 2019 | Houston Chronicle

By Editorial Board

If you see something, say something.
That’s good advice in this era when airports, train stations, schools and even churches have become settings for terrorist acts. It’s a good slogan for neighborhoods trying to work with police to reduce crime.
It’s also what you should do at work, especially if it’s at a job site where dangerous chemicals and materials are stored or handled. If you see something, say something before a tragedy occurs. It’s no longer safe, if it ever was, to count on companies to spot and respond to safety risks on their own, or to just assume Texas’ overly lenient regulators will do their jobs.
Speaking up and insisting on a response might have prevented the deadly fire last month at the KMCO plant in Crosby. Three contract workers who say they were injured have filed a lawsuit accusing company officials of knowing about a leaky valve before the explosion that the defective device may have caused.
If it’s true that managers knew of the leaky valve beforehand and ignored it, then it’s possible that plant worker James Earl Mangum, 27, of Daisetta might still be alive had they addressed it.
Ignoring employees’ safety concerns risks tragic incidents such as the fire at KMCO, but it also increases the risk of future incidents, too. Too often, plant workers won’t report a problem to a supervisor because past allegations have fallen on deaf ears. And workers who might report concerns to outside authorities have to weigh both the risks to their jobs and the likelihood that officials will act.
That may have been a problem at both the KMCO plant and the March 17 fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Co. chemical storage facility in Deer Park. Both facilities have been cited numerous times over the years for violating air and water pollution regulations. That’s evidence that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality isn’t doing its job.
A recent report says a chemical fire or explosion occurs almost every six weeks in the Houston region. Elena Craft of the Environmental Defense Fund says that’s because “the state agency responsible for ensuring chemical plant safety is missing in action.”
If Texans can’t trust the TCEQ to protect them, they’ll stop reporting violations. That only ups the risks for all of us.
So, it was good to see Harris County Commissioners Court approve the hiring of four new prosecutors to investigate environmental crimes. The two prosecutors currently assigned to that duty handle 400 to 500 cases a year, but most involve smaller companies or individuals accused of illegal dumping and water pollution.
With more lawyers in that division, District Attorney Kim Ogg can look at bigger targets. Her office has already charged ITC with five misdemeanor counts for releasing chemicals into the Tucker Bayou during the fire. Ogg took a similarly aggressive stance by charging Arkema with failing to properly store highly combustible chemicals that ignited and polluted the air during Hurricane Harvey.
That same aggressiveness should lead the county to invest more in the Pollution Control Services Department. In February, it received a 28 percent budget increase, about $1.2 million, but the Deer Park and KMCO fires occurring within three weeks of each other stretched its resources to monitor air and water quality.
County leaders have been smart to make other improvements, too. The pollution department didn’t have a website to give the public real-time air quality data during the ITC fire, so Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo got an ad hoc group of county employees to design one. They did it in eight hours. Hidalgo also directed the county health department to hire 11 private contractors at a cost of $375,000 to help monitor the air and bill ITC for the expense. In all, the county planned to bill ITC nearly $2 million for expenses, including costs incurred by emergency and law enforcement agencies.
Making environmental rules breakers pay for their crimes is crucial. That can happen only if agencies at every level of government charged with monitoring chemical and other dangerous facilities do their jobs. They can’t put job creation above environmental protection. Voters should show the door to politicians who urge officials to join their club of corporate sycophants.
Meanwhile, more workers need to find their voice and remember: when you see something, say something. Don’t be afraid to tell a supervisor that you noticed a leaky valve or improperly stored materials or inadequate safety procedures. Then say if he or she doesn’t report the problem to the appropriate regulatory agency, you will. Say you would rather be fired than become a fatality.
Some workplace incidents are unavoidable. Others never would have occurred if someone who saw something, said something. Anyone can do that. Just open your mouth and speak to whoever will listen. Don’t let your silence seal your fate.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/It-s-up-to-all-of-us-to-prevent-another-13823520.php

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Environment News

House Tax-Writing Panel Plans May 15 Climate Change Hearing

May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Kaustuv Basu

The House Ways and Means Committee plans to hold a May 15 hearing on climate change, according to sources familiar with the conversation.
Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in February that he is “committed to passing legislation out of my committee that will help bring down emissions” while also boosting efficiency and clean energy.
Sources said they expect a carbon tax to come up during the committee’s discussion along with other climate issues, including health care and trade. A carbon tax levies a fee on the production, distribution, or use of fossil fuels based on how much carbon their combustion emits.
Democrats running for president in 2020 are expected to delve into the carbon tax debate in the months ahead. But others, including Ways and Means member Ron Kind (D-Wis.), remain wary, saying that a carbon tax could hurt low-income earners.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/house-tax-writing-panel-plans-may-15-climate-change-hearing

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Ocasio-Cortez to Headline Green New Deal Rally in Washington, DC

May 7, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Justin Wise

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will headline a rally later this month in Washington, D.C., promoting the Green New Deal, a progressive proposal that calls for sweeping reforms to combat climate change.
The Sunrise Movement, a youth climate organization, is closing out its nationwide "Road to a Green New Deal Tour" with a rally at Howard University on May 13. The group announced on Monday that Ocasio-Cortez would headline the demonstration, which about 1,500 people are expected to attend.
"All over the country, I’ve been amazed by the enthusiasm for the Green New Deal," Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash, who has spent the last month on the road with the tour, said in a statement.
"Thousands of new people are joining the movement. From fire-scarred California to the flooded heartland, Americans are hungry for an economic transformation at the scale of what science and justice demand," she continued.
"I’m thrilled to be joining Ocasio-Cortez to close out tour and lay out what’s next in the Green New Deal campaign," she added.
The Sunrise Movement said that the event will launch a nationwide campaign to make the 2020 presidential election a referendum on the Green New Deal.
Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the Green New Deal earlier this year. The nonbinding legislation calls for the federal government to make sweeping reforms in order to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and produce "good, high-wage jobs."
While Progressives have hailed the measure, Republicans and some moderates have criticized it, pointing to its high costs.
Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, told The New York Timesthat the "Democratic Party needs to lay out a clear and bold vision for America."
"And that’s not only the best path for our planet — but it’s the best path strategically and electorally to take the Senate and White House," he said.
Ocasio-Cortez has been outspoken about issues related to the economy and climate change since being elected to Congress last year. In November, she joined more than 100 members of the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats in a sit-in at then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office. The demonstration called for legislators to take action against climate change.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/442328-ocasio-cortez-to-headline-green-new-deal-rally-in-washington-dc

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Senate Dems Challenge Trump's UN Nominee on Climate Change

May 6, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Zack Budryk

Three Senate Democrats on Friday called on Kelly Craft, President Trump’s nominee to serve as United Nations ambassador, to commit to prioritizing U.S. interests on climate change over her financial interests.
In the letter, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) submitted a series of questions to Kelly Craft, who currently serves as the U.S. ambassador to Canada and was formally nominated for the U.N. ambassador position last week.
The three senators, in the letter, note Craft’s ties to the energy industry through more than $60 million in fossil fuel investments, as well as her husband Joe Craft, CEO of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners.
“As our U.N. Ambassador, you would be responsible for representing the United States at the United Nations on matters affecting international cooperation and action to address the climate crisis,” the senators wrote.
"[W]e need assurances that, in connection with U.N. activities related to climate change, you will put our nation’s interests ahead of your personal financial interests,” they wrote.
Specifically, the letter asks whether Craft acknowledges climate change exists and is caused by human activity, whether she agrees with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and whether U.S. adherence to international climate agreements would impact her financial interests.
The letter also asks whether Craft believes her and her husband’s financial interests will affect her neutrality on climate issues.
“Should the United States fully withdraw from the Paris climate agreement – which President Trump has announced plans to do – the United Nations Ambassador becomes America’s chief diplomat on global climate change issues,” Markey said in a statement.
Craft's views on climate change have come into question before. In October 2017, soon after she was appointed to serve as ambassador to Canada, Craft told Canada's CBC News that she believes "both sides" of climate change science.
The U.S. Embassy in Ottawa did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/442349-senate-democrats-challenge-trumps-un-nominee-on-climate-change

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Human Activity, Climate Change Driving Widespread Species Loss

May 6, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Abby Smith

Ecosystems and species are declining quickly and significantly as a result of human activity, and the losses are exacerbated by global warming, according to a new international report that marks the most comprehensive assessment of biodiversity losses to date.
Around 1 million species face extinction already, and many of those could be gone within decades without global action to address the drivers of biodiversity loss, according to an executive summary released May 6 by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES. The group of more than 100 member countries, including the United States, will release its full report later in the year.
“The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever,” Robert Watson, a British scientist who chairs the IPBES, said in a statement. “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
Climate Driver
The report points to five major factors leading to biodiversity loss, ranked in order of having the greatest impact: changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of animal and plant species; climate change; pollution; and invasion of alien species.
Global warming is projected to “profoundly” shrink the habitats of most land-based species, even under a scenario where the world meets the goal of the Paris climate agreement to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), the report says.
And the impact on species loss from climate change will only increase, it says. As the planet warms, those changes will exacerbate the intensity of other factors damaging nature.
‘Transformative’ Change
The IPBES report calls for “transformative” change to address biodiversity losses.
That includes a rethinking of agriculture and fishing practices, and promoting nature-based solutions to climate change and sustainability in urban areas. Nature-based solutions in urban areas include expanding green spaces.
The report also notes that biodiversity and ecosystem losses threaten the world’s ability to meet climate change targets under the Paris Agreement. Countries would also be better able to meet United Nations sustainable development goals, as well as slow the damage to biodiversity, if they incorporate and address climate change impacts, the report finds.
Environmentalists say the report underscores the importance of shifting away from fossil fuel-intensive industries, as well as changing practices such as factory farming that contribute to species loss and pollution.
“Factory farming and fossil fuels are a double whammy for the ecosystems that provide us safe, abundant food and clean water,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the environmental group Food & Water Watch, said in a statement. “We ignore this report and its implications for human survival at our own peril.”
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/human-activity-climate-change-driving-widespread-species-loss

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Inslee to Sign Bill Phasing Out Potent Greenhouse Gases

May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Paul Shukovsky

Members of a class of refrigerants that are powerful greenhouse gases would be phased out in Washington state beginning in 2020, under a bill Gov. Jay Inslee (D) will sign into law late May 7.
Hydrofluorocarbons—used in a wide range of products including supermarket coolers, vending machines, refrigerators and automobile air conditioners—have a global warming potential ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 times more potent that carbon dioxide, according to a state Senate analysis of SHB 1112.
“The federal government under this president is no longer taking action to address this challenge, so the states of the U.S. Climate Alliance are adopting a framework to ensure that we transition to climate-safe alternatives to these super-pollutants,” Inslee said in a May 6 email to Bloomberg Environment.
Cutting Greenhouse Gases
The measure is one of five bills Inslee will sign May 7 intended to reduce Washington’s contribution to greenhouse gases. Inslee will also sign a “100% clean-energy” bill; an energy-efficient commercial buildings mandate; electric and alternative fuel vehicles incentives and infrastructure investments; and an appliance efficiency bill.
Inslee said the package of bills “puts the state within reach of the 2035 target set by the legislature, getting us 75 percent of the way and creating enormous momentum for further action.” The current Washington statute says that by 2035, overall emissions of greenhouse gases in the state must be reduced to a target of 25 percent below 1990 levels.
The hydrofluorocarbons bill follows the lead of California. The Golden State in 2018 passed a similar phaseout measure after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2017, in Mexichem Fluor Inc. v. EPA, vacated parts of nationwide restrictions being implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Washington bill calls for phasing out the potent HFCs by product category over five years from Jan. 1, 2020, with propellants, foam blowing agents like polyurethane or spray foam, vending machines, and supermarket refrigeration systems.
Emergency Rulemaking
The Washington Department of Ecology will likely have to undertake an emergency rulemaking process to meet the Jan. 1 deadline, Rules and Planning Unit Manager Jason Alberich said in a May 6 telephone interview.
The bill would allow the department to adopt rules addressing the use of HFCs in motor vehicle air conditioning systems within one year of another state’s enactment or adoption of such restrictions.
Alberich and Gail Sandlin, a Washington ecology department greenhouse gas specialist, said the department will develop a database for compliance purposes and build it in part by reaching out to stakeholders, including those who expressed opposition to the bill, such as the Washington Food Industry Association and the Washington Air Conditioning Contractors Association.
Mexichem Fluor and Arkema S.A., which make HFC refrigerants and propellants, also opposed the bill. The American Chemistry Council didn’t take a position on the bill, a council spokesman said May 3.
‘100% Clean Energy’
The “100-percent clean energy” bill would require Washington state utilities to eliminate coal-fired electricity by 2025 and sell retail power solely from non-emitting and renewable sources by 2045.
It would: use pricing signals to nudge the grid away from fossil fuels by creating tradable renewable energy credits that can be bought and sold; impose administrative penalties for noncompliance; and establish a rate-setting mechanism that gives incentives to reduce carbon and recognizes the negative impacts of fossil fuels.
The commercial buildings bill would require the state commerce department to create an energy performance standard for certain commercial buildings by Nov. 1, 2020. It would also impose building code rules requiring electric vehicle charging capability at all new buildings that provide on-site parking.
The electric and alternative-fuel vehicle bill would reinstate a sales tax exemption for alternative fuel passenger vehicles that phases out over six years. And it would provide incentives to the private sector, such as business and occupation tax credits, to spur alternative fuel vehicle infrastructure for commercial vehicles. It would also create a capital grant program to aid transit authorities in electrifying their fleets, using alternative fuels, and adding electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The appliance bill would establish new minimum efficiency standards for a range of products. If manufactured after Dec. 31, 2020, appliances that fail to meet the standard would not be able to be sold, leased or rented. The appliances include: commercial fryers, dishwashers, and steam cookers; computers and monitors; residential ventilating fans; showerheads; urinals, and water coolers.
https://bnanews.bna.com/environment-and-energy/inslee-to-sign-bill-phasing-out-potent-greenhouse-gases

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Global CO2 Nears Troubling Benchmark

May 7, 2019 | E&E Climatewire

By Scott Waldman

The world has surpassed a level of carbon dioxide not seen in about 3 million years, and levels are accelerating an unprecedented pace.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide almost topped 415 parts per million on May 1 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, according to the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. On that day, the observatory measured a CO2 level of 414.94 ppm. Levels could go even higher and surpass the 415 ppm mark before the end of spring.
Every year, carbon dioxide tends to spike in the spring before plant life reemerges in a large part of the world to begin the uptake of the greenhouse gas.
But the rate of carbon emissions has accelerated in recent years, said Gernot Wagner, author of "Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet" and a researcher at Harvard University's Center for the Environment. The jump from 410 ppm to 415 ppm happened more quickly than the jump from 400 ppm to 405 ppm, which happened faster than the previous 5-ppm jump, and so on, he said.
That accelerating rate of increase is one of the more alarming, and less covered, aspects of the rising CO2 levels, he said.
"It's what matters most for all these climate damages; it's the increase in those concentrations that is still increasing at an increasing rate," he said. "We are going in the wrong direction at an increasing speed."
The newest benchmark brings current CO2 levels in line with the Pliocene Epoch, which occurred between 2.58 million and 5.33 million years ago. At that time, global average temperatures were 5.4 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than today and 18 degrees warmer at the poles, according to Scripps. Sea levels were 16 to 131 feet higher than today, Scripps has found.
During ancient climate change events, an increase of 10 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide might have taken 1,000 years. It has taken just six years to go from 400 ppm to 415 ppm. When the late Charles David Keeling started measuring carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa in 1958, levels stood at 316 ppm, a slight increase from the 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution.
At the current rate, CO2 levels will top 1,000 ppm in about a century. That level will profoundly alter life on the planet and render wide swaths of Earth uninhabitable, scientists have found.
Keeling's data set — it's now maintained by his son Ralph — is regarded as one of the key measurements that demonstrate how human-caused climate change is affecting the planet. The elder Keeling developed the Keeling curve, which shows annual fluctuations in CO2 levels and links them to fossil fuel consumption.
As carbon dioxide levels rise, so, too, do global temperatures. The last five years have been the hottest on record. And while nothing happens as the 415 ppm benchmark is surpassed, it's another significant step into a warmer world, Wagner said.
"We've never had this global experiment. It's an amazingly fast increase," he said. "Three million years ago, when we did have CO2 levels as high as they are today, those changes happened very, very slowly, and the world was a very different place. We had crocodiles in the Arctic Circle; we had sea levels 30 to 90 feet higher than today."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/05/07/stories/1060286895

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U.S. Blocks Language on Climate

May 7, 2019 | E&E Climatewire

By Jean Chemnick

A meeting of the world's eight Arctic nations ended today without a formal agreement after the United States refused to allow language on climate change to be included.
The Arctic Council meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland, where foreign ministers from the Nordic countries, Russia, Canada and the United States, ended instead with an informal statement after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blocked language last night that would have referenced warming in the Arctic.
In a speech yesterday in Finland, Pompeo made one reference to the impact of climate change in the region.
"Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade," he said in an address that focused on warnings about Chinese and Russian activity in the Arctic.
Asked later by Finnish reporters about the United States' apparent refusal to accept language about warming supported by every other nation on the council, Pompeo claimed that the U.S. maintains a leadership role in responding to climate change.
"The United States is kicking it when it comes to getting its CO2 down," he said. "I mean, compare it to China, compare it to Russia, compare it — frankly — to many European nations, each of whom signed the Paris Agreement."
All eight members of the Arctic Council signed a declaration two years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska, that endorsed the Paris Agreement. But since that meeting — which was chaired by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — President Trump has announced that the U.S. will exit Paris.
"I'm sure it was a good party," Pompeo said yesterday about the 2015 Paris summit, adding that technology and innovation "will drive better climatic outcomes."
In remarks at the close of the meeting today, Arctic Council Chairman and Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini referenced "rapid change of the Arctic climate and its effects on nature and the people." The region is warming twice as fast as the global average, and scientists say melting ice and other effects pose dangers for the rest of the world.
Pam Pearson, director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, called the U.S. position in Rovaniemi "saddening."
"On one level, it's a positive step that the other countries held the line and refused to approve a declaration weak on climate change," she said. "The question is whether the council can find a way forward to science-based action on climate, if necessary without the current U.S. administration."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/05/07/stories/1060290041

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