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AM ACC Clips Report - May 8, 2019

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Companies Scramble To Prepare For Trump's New Taxes on Chinese Goods
May 7, 2019 | PoliticoPro
By Doug Palmerdam and Adam Behsudi

U.S. companies are bracing for a huge jump in costs as tariffs on $200 billion worth of consumer products and other goods from China are set to more than double on Friday per President Donald Trump’s orders.
(ACC Mentioned) Fear of Intensifying Trade War Ricochets Through Economy
May 8, 2019 | The New York Times
By Matt Phillips, Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport

Fears of an escalating trade war between the United States and China ricocheted through the American economy on Tuesday, sending stocks down sharply and prompting businesses large and small to brace for fallout.
(ACC Mentioned) Ohio Industry Leaders Join Together To Denounce Tariff Increase
May 8, 2019 | Ohio's Country Journal and Ohio Ag Net
By Kolt Buchenroth, Zach Parrott and Joel Penhorwood

Tariffs Hurt the Heartland — the nationwide grassroots campaign against tariffs — in conjunction with the Council of the Great Lakes Region, hosted a town hall this week in Cleveland at the 2019 Great Lakes Economic Forum.
(ACC Mentioned) US Farmers, Industry Urge Trump to Resolve China Trade Dispute Quickly
May 7, 2019 | AFP (In Yahoo News)
By Heather SCOTT with Ryan McMorrow in Beijing

US soy farmers and industry on Tuesday urged President Donald Trump to pull back from his tariff threat and quickly bring an end to the trade dispute with China.
(ACC Mentioned) Market Definition: Global Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services Market
May 7, 2019 | The Market Research News

Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services are used in the industries to reduce the nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide gas emission, which is the major reason for acid rain and photochemical oxidation in the environment which causes many respiratory diseases.
(ACC Mentioned) Aussie Shares Slide After US President Donald Trump Ramped Up Trade War Tensions With China
May 8, 2019 | News.com.au
By James Hall

The Australian share market has fallen at the open after a dismal trading session on Wall Street overnight where investors were spooked by President Donald Trump’s renewed tariff threat on China.

TSCA News

TSCA Inventory Rule Case Raises Questions about Substantiation, Reverse Engineering
May 8, 2019 | EHS Daily
By William C. Schillaci

In September 2017, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to find five aspects of the EPA’s final rule, TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements (Aug. 11, 2017, Federal Register (FR)), unlawful.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) E.P.A. Leaders Disregarded Agency’s Experts in Issuing Asbestos Rule, Memos Show
May 8, 2019 | The New York Times
By Lisa Friedman

Senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency disregarded the advice of their own scientists and lawyers in April when the agency issued a rule that restricted but did not ban asbestos, according to two internal memos.
(ACC Mentioned) Texas Legislature Passes Bill To Advance Chemical Recycling
May 7, 2019 | Recycling Today
By Kelly Maile

If signed by Governor Greg Abbott, Texas will become the sixth state—and the third state this year—to pass legislation to promote advanced plastics recycling and recovery technologies, which convert post-consumer plastics into valuable raw materials using chemical recycling.
(ACC Mentioned) Prop 65 Fact Sheet for Styrene Includes Perplexing Recommendation
May 8, 2019 | The National Law Review

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recently posted a fact sheet on styrene on its Proposition 65 warning website. That fact sheet includes a confusing recommendation concerning polystyrene.
New Study Claims 43 States Expose Millions To Dangerous Chemical In Drinking Water
May 8, 2019 | CBS News
By Brian Pascus

A new report by the non-profit Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University finds people in nearly every state in the country are exposed to unhealthy drinking water. According to the researchers, 43 states have locations, including drinking water sites, contaminated with PFAS chemicals. The CDC says these chemicals have been linked to health issues that include birth defects, cancers and infertility.
EPA Says PV29 Is Perfectly Safe. The EU, Citing Concerns And A Dearth of Data, Begs To Differ.
May 7, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison

In contrast to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) asserted clean bill of health for Pigment Violet 29 (PV29) in its draft risk evaluation, authorities under the European Union’s REACH program have formally declared the chemical to be a suspected persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substance and a suspected very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) substance. Either designation, if confirmed, would classify PV29 as a substance of very high concern (SVHC) under the EU’s REACH Regulation.
Canada Clears Four Epoxy Resins
May 7, 2019 | Chemical Watch

Canada has concluded that four epoxy resins used in paints, coatings and plastics are not harmful at current exposure levels.
Eurometaux Suggests More ‘Holistic’ EU Restriction Process
May 7, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Caterina Tani

The REACH restriction process should better incorporate socioeconomic factors and links between other EU legislation, metals trade body Eurometaux said.
NGO Pushes For Action on Chemicals Ahead Of EU Summit
May 8, 2019 | Chemical Watch

Member states should commit to closing regulatory loopholes concerning chemicals at an EU summit on 9 May, an NGO has said.
When Chemicals Are Used To Scare You About Food
May 8, 2019 | Washington Post
By Cara Rosenbloom

Would you worry if you knew your food contained sucrose octanoate esters or tocopherols? They might sound frightening, but don’t fret. These substances in packaged foods are also known as sugar, fat and vitamin E.

Energy News

Bernhardt: Climate Change Is Real, but Drilling Won’t Stop (1)
May 8, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz

The head of the Department of the Interior told Congress he believes climate change is happening and that human activity is a cause, but said he won’t stop fossil fuel development on lands he oversees.
Oregon Rejects CWA 401 Certification For Proposed LNG Facility
May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

Oregon environment officials are rejecting a key Clean Water Act (CWA) approval for a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal and related pipeline, accelerating their decision due to uncertainty over a deadline and before EPA limits states' authority under CWA section 401 as required by a recent order from President Donald Trump.
Natural Gas Is A Destination Fuel, Not A Bridge — Study
May 8, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel

Natural gas will be critical to meeting national climate goals, an industry group argues in a new study that points to the fuel's growing role in balancing renewable power along with gas demand for exports and manufacturing.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

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

Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) Inslee Signs Bill Phasing Out Potent Greenhouse Gases (1)
May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky

Members of a class of refrigerants that are powerful greenhouse gases will be phased out in Washington state beginning in 2020, under a bill Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed into law late May 7.
(ACC Mentioned) EPA’s Wheeler Discusses Marine Litter and Waste at G7 Meeting
May 8, 2019 | WorkBoat

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler hosted U.S. stakeholders at the G7 Environmental Ministers meeting in Metz, France, Sunday to discuss ways the government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector can work to curb marine litter and waste.
States Fault EPA’s Proposed FY20 Cuts To Clean Air Act Grant Programs
May 8, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dave Reynolds

State and local air regulators are faulting EPA’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget cuts to key Clean Air Act grant programs on which they rely, arguing in comments on the agency’s draft air office funding guidance that further reducing grant funding to states will hinder already strained programs and risk harming public health.
EPA Rejects New York’s Petition to Reduce Upwind Air Pollution
May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid

New York won’t get any assistance from the EPA in meeting air quality standards for ozone anytime soon.
NRDC Urges NAFTA Replacement To Cite Paris Climate Deal
May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

Environmentalists are urging Congress to withhold approval of the Trump administration's proposed replacement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) until the administration, Canada and Mexico agree to revise the deal to include a pledge to uphold the Paris climate agreement.
Enviros Sue EPA Over Ozone Compliance In 8 States
May 7, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly

Two environmental groups sued EPA today to force decisions on the compliance status of Dallas-Fort Worth and almost a dozen other areas currently in violation of the agency's 2008 ground-level ozone standard.
Trump Interior Chief Says Climate Change Response Falls on Congress
May 7, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Beitsch

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt defended his position on climate change and record on ethics while speaking before lawmakers Tuesday to discuss his agency's proposed budget.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Companies Scramble To Prepare For Trump's New Taxes on Chinese Goods

May 7, 2019 | PoliticoPro

By Doug Palmerdam and Adam Behsudi

U.S. companies are bracing for a huge jump in costs as tariffs on $200 billion worth of consumer products and other goods from China are set to more than double on Friday per President Donald Trump’s orders.
“One of our biggest concerns right now is that there’s nothing we can do to mitigate these tariffs,” said Hun Quach, vice president for international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “Five days notice is not enough. All of our products are already on the water headed here.”
U.S. stocks tumbled for a second day after the president tweeted on Sunday that he would increase his 10 percent tariff to 25 percent after China tried to renegotiate certain elements of a proposed trade truce.
After Friday, roughly half of the $505 billion that the U.S. imported from China would be subject to 25 percent tariffs. That will force American companies to either eat the added costs or be forced to pass it to their customers.
Trump also intends to begin steps to slap a 25 percent duty on another $325 billion worth of Chinese goods. If those duties are put into place, that would essentially cover all U.S. imports — including Apple iPhones, toys and many household items — from the world's second-largest economy.
Last year, the president imposed tariffs on the first $50 billion worth of Chinese imports, covering many products that the Trump administration says benefited from unfair subsidies under China’s “Made in 2025” plan, which is intended to help it achieve in a number of high-tech sectors, like artificial intelligence and driverless cars.
But the second, $200 billion list includes many consumer goods. They range from low-value items like dog leashes, toothbrushes and toilet paper to pricier goods like barbecue grills, vacuum cleaners, freezers, refrigerators and furniture.
Trump administration officials hope the tariff actions will force China to reconsider some of its positions and move back into a final deal-making mode.
American negotiators thought they were close to an agreement reining in some of China’s worst trade practices when they went to Beijing last week for talks, only to discover that was no longer the case.
"The practices we are objecting to by China are having a very negative effect on the United States economy now and in the future,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told reporters on Tuesday. “Getting those corrected, getting that right is just a fundamental objective of this president and it really, really is important for American workers and American companies and for American farmers and ranchers."
A delegation led by a top official, Vice Premier Liu He, is still coming to Washington for talks on Thursday and Friday. But analysts say that too much is outstanding for a deal to be reached in such a narrow time frame.
Most manufacturers, suppliers and business groups are warning that it is their members, and their American customers, who will shoulder the brunt of the tariffs.
China has retaliated against Trump's existing tariffs by imposing duties on $110 billion worth of U.S. goods, including many farm exports — and many expect the nation to ratchet up those duties or take other measures to hurt American exports further.
Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley on Tuesday was cautiously supportive of Trump's plan to increase pressure on Beijing. But he also expressed concern about the negative impact of duties if no deal is reached and the tariffs remain in place indefinitely.
"When all the dust settles over these negotiations or these tariffs, we have to show that this was a worthwhile negotiation," Grassley said. "I urge the Chinese negotiators to bring these talks to a halt, with a successful close, so we can avoid prolonged tariffs, which we know have an impact on the U.S. economy.”
Because of the high stakes, Grassley said it was important the administration conclude a strong, enforceable agreement that addresses the concerns about China's trade practices that prompted Trump to launch his trade war, including Beijing's subsidies for state-controlled industries and protection of U.S. intellectual property.
Trump administration officials said they believed a deal was still possible, and even seemed to leave the door open to the possibility that duties wouldn’t be increased on Friday — if China comes to talks on Thursday with a different attitude.
“We've negotiated in good faith that they want to conclude a deal,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters at the same briefing with Lighthizer. “We'll meet with them and have a deal [if that’s possible]. If not, we'll move forward with tariffs.”
Lighthizer defended the move to escalate tariffs, arguing that Chinese trade practices are “having a very negative effect on the United States economy now and in the future.”
He added that an escalation in tariffs was always something that could happen over the course of talks, but said there would be an exclusion process so companies can petition to have certain products removed from the tariff list after they’ve been imposed.
However, USTR is already working through a huge backlog of requests for the tariffs Trump imposed on the first $50 billion worth of Chinese goods.
If the talks fail, some of Grassley's farm state constituents could be among those who suffer the most economic hardship.
Beijing has resumed limited purchases of U.S. soybeans and corn in recent months as the two sides have worked to reach a deal, but it could just as easily stop buying from the U.S. if negotiations break down.
On Tuesday, markets continued to be unsettled by the escalation of tensions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 473 points, or 1.8 percent. The broader Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks was also off 1.65 percent.
U.S. chemical manufacturers, who supply products to a long list of other U.S. sectors, have been hit by tariffs imposed by both China and the United States. That includes a 25 percent duty that Trump imposed on about $2.2 billion worth of chemical products from China and a 10 percent duty Trump imposed another $12.8 billion worth.
The president’s latest move is “creating a lot of unpredictability and uncertainty in the marketplace,” said Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade for the American Chemistry Council. “Our members told us they could deal with 10 percent. They didn’t like it. It was not helpful to their businesses. But a 25 percent tariff rate is going to be very damaging for them.”
The industry fully expects that China will retaliate by again raising its tariff on what had been about $11 billion worth of U.S. chemical exports to that market, Brzytwa added. After the previous rounds of Trump’s tariffs and China’s retaliations, sales to that market dropped off about 24 percent last year, he said.
Like many in the business sector, the council believes the Trump administration has correctly identified serious problems in China surrounding intellectual property and forced technology transfers, and other types of market access barriers.
Now, the industry “wants to see a deal that produces meaningful, long-term commitments from China that are enforceable and addressing all these problems — and we want the tariffs to go away,” Brzytwa said.
The worst of both worlds would be for no deal to be reached and for Trump’s and China’s duties to stay in place indefinitely. “If they can’t get to a deal with China and they increase tariffs, that’s going to increase pain for zero gain,” Brzytwa said. “So we’re just encouraging the administration to find sensible solutions to all these problems.”
Trump administration officials are gambling they can still reach a deal, and believe any short-term pains will be outweighed by the benefits.
"It’s important to focus on the fact that these are very, very pernicious actions that we’re trying to correct and that has an enormous benefit,” Lighthizer said.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/05/07/trumps-taxes-chinese-goods-1415667

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(ACC Mentioned) Fear of Intensifying Trade War Ricochets Through Economy

May 8, 2019 | The New York Times

By Matt Phillips, Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport

Fears of an escalating trade war between the United States and China ricocheted through the American economy on Tuesday, sending stocks down sharply and prompting businesses large and small to brace for fallout.
For months, investors and companies had been lulled into a sense of security that the world’s two largest economies appeared to be getting closer to a deal to resolve their battle. That calm was shattered this week when the Trump administration threatened to impose a new round of tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese products.
A delegation of Chinese leaders is preparing to travel to Washington for talks later this week, and Trump administration officials pledged to try to get trade negotiations back on track. But it is unclear whether the two sides can defuse the newest tensions.
After financial markets closed on Monday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, emphasized that President Trump’s threats were not idle.
The market reaction was swift. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 index dropped 1.65 percent, its second straight daily decline. The sour mood continued early Wednesday in Asia, as markets in China, Japan and Hong Kong traded down 1 percent or more.
That spoiled what had been a jubilant mood in the markets. In the first four months of 2019, the S&P 500 soared 17.5 percent, the index’s best start to a year since 1987. Investors shook off concerns that the global economy was slowing, that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates and that the trade battle between the United States and China would drag on.
“We had all of those more or less resolved,” said Evan Brown, a markets strategist at UBS Asset Management. “We had the Fed become a lot more dovish. We had growth stabilize. And we had what everyone thought was the trade war moving toward a healing phase.”
Some experts said the market’s hot streak this year, along with consistently robust data about the health of the United States economy, might be emboldening Mr. Trump to ratchet up the trade dispute with China.
“He’s never had better cards dealt to him to push China hard than right now,” said Michael Purves, chief global strategist at the brokerage firm Weeden & Company. “There’s clearly the risk that he’s going to push this into Friday and beyond.”
Talks are racing against a deadline. The Trump administration is threatening to raise the tariff on roughly $200 billion of Chinese imports to 25 percent, from 10 percent, on Friday.
The administration doubled down after Chinese negotiators walked back commitments, including how the deal would be enforced. They particularly objected to how Mr. Trump’s advisers wanted to codify it, people familiar with the talks said.
The administration wanted the text of the agreement to specify that some of changes that China had promised would be made in Chinese law. But Chinese negotiators insisted that the changes would be carried out through regulatory and administrative actions by the Chinese government, and not cemented in place through legislation in the National People’s Congress.
In a briefing on Tuesday, a Chinese government spokesman did not directly address the American accusations, but said that raising tariffs would not resolve any problems and that China was continuing to negotiate in good faith.
The growing friction led investors and business owners to steel themselves for greater turbulence. On Tuesday, investors battered shares of companies that rely directly or indirectly on international trade and the Chinese economy.
Caterpillar and Deere, industrial equipment makers with large markets in China, dropped 2.3 percent and 1.5 percent. Boeing, one of the United States’ largest exporters, dropped about 4 percent. Shares of semiconductor companies sank more than 2 percent.
In China, share prices plunged as much as 6 percent on Monday after Mr. Trump’s initial threat. They recovered only a small part of those losses on Tuesday.
Brock Silvers, the chief executive of Kaiyuan Capital, an investment management and advisory firm in Shanghai, said there was little optimism that Vice Premier Liu He, who will lead China’s delegation to the United States this week, could persuade the Trump administration to delay the latest increase in tariffs, at least initially.
“Markets had expected a quick agreement, and now seem shocked by the possibility of a prolonged economic conflict,” Mr. Silvers said.
A parade of United States trade associations sounded alarm bells this week that a new round of tariffs risked disrupting their industries, harming the economy and raising prices for consumers.
The auto industry, for example, is worried that tariffs will make imported car parts more expensive, and that China will put retaliatory tariffs on American-made cars sold in China, said John Bozzella, the president of Global Automakers, which represents international car companies.
“Our concern is, as we go back into a phase of tit-for-tat tariffs, that the auto industry would face some significant pain,” Mr. Bozzella said.
Tariffs would also hurt the chemicals industry, which depends on China for several chemicals that are not available anywhere else and are critical to American manufacturing, said Cal Dooley, the president of the American Chemistry Council.
“The risks of continuing to use tariffs as a negotiating tactic with China are simply too high — and any potential benefits still unclear,” Mr. Dooley said.
Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, praised the president on Tuesday for daring to anger big companies by standing up to China.
“This is the biggest move of his presidency — to break ranks with other administrations and confront China’s economic war with America,” Mr. Bannon said.
But not just giant industries could be walloped by a new round of tariffs on Chinese products.
Tiffany Williams, owner of the Luggage Shop of Lubbock in Texas, was already hurting this year from the first phase of duties. They led to a roughly 10 percent increase in the price of the travel bags and accessories that her store sells. Ms. Williams had responded by raising her prices. That, she said, led some customers to shy away from buying high-end bags — which now cost more than $400 each, up from about $370 — and instead buy cheaper luggage.
This week, Ms. Williams said, she started getting calls from wholesalers warning that prices will go up again if Mr. Trump makes good on his threat to increase tariffs on Chinese imports.
“It’s very concerning,” said Ms. Williams, whose grandfather opened the shop in 1951. “It will change what consumers are ready to buy from us.” As she waits to assess the damage, she said, she is holding off on hiring more workers.
Delta Children in New York, which sells cribs that it imports from China, swallowed most of the costs stemming from the first round of tariffs, the company's president, Joe Shamie, said. He said he had increased prices to retailers by only about 3 percent.
A new round of tariffs? “We can’t absorb them,” said Mr. Shamie, who described his company as the world’s largest seller of cribs. “Our prices will go up drastically.”
The average price of a crib is between $200 and $250, but prices will top $300 if the higher tariffs are enacted, most likely leading some families to forgo buying a new crib, he said.
Delta Children employs 350 workers. If crib sales decline because of the tariffs, Mr. Shamie said, he will have to consider layoffs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/business/stock-market-china-trade.html?searchResultPosition=2

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(ACC Mentioned) Ohio Industry Leaders Join Together To Denounce Tariff Increase

May 8, 2019 | Ohio's Country Journal and Ohio Ag Net

By Kolt Buchenroth, Zach Parrott and Joel Penhorwood

Tariffs Hurt the Heartland — the nationwide grassroots campaign against tariffs — in conjunction with the Council of the Great Lakes Region, hosted a town hall this week in Cleveland at the 2019 Great Lakes Economic Forum.
The event featured a discussion with Ohio business owners, manufacturers and farmers on the impact of tariffs on the state’s economy. The conversation came one day after President Trump announced that he will be increasing tariffs substantially this week.
The group released the following statement regarding the tweet announcement that tariffs on $200 billion of goods will increase from 10 to 25% on Friday.
“For 10 months, Americans have been paying the full cost of the trade war, not China. To be clear, tariffs are taxes that Americans pay, and this sudden increase with little notice will only punish U.S farmers, businesses and consumers,” Tariffs Hurt the Heartland said in the statement. “If the President follows through on this threat, the consequences will be dire. Raising tariffs to 25% could cost nearly one million American jobs, according to recent estimates. This decision will also roil financial markets and increase the likelihood of retaliation on American farmers who are facing the lowest income levels in years.”
A recent study by the non-partisan economic research firm the Trade Partnership found that if tariffs are increased to 25% it would result in 29,100 job losses in Ohio.
Tadd Nicholson, executive director of the Ohio Corn and Wheat Growers Association, talked with Ohio Ag Net’s Joel Penhorwood following the meeting.
“Trade has always been a simple thing in agriculture,” Nicholson said during the group conversation. “We know that we can outcompete in production of food in the world. When there is a tariff coming, that means that there is some form of retaliation. The retaliation will quickly affect agricultural products like soybeans, corn and wheat. If the price of soybean plummets, because of a trade war with China, it causes a overproduction of another product like corn, and low profitability of soybean. The impact is compounded. The livestock industry is also affected, because our corn and soybean goes into the feed of livestock animals.
“Agriculture needs a win. We are in a depressed economic state. Any benefit we see in the future will come from trades and exports with other countries.”
Agriculture isn’t the only industry seeing hard times in part because of tariffs. The motor industry has recently stepped out with their perspective, especially since Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana lead the way for employment in automobile manufacturing.
“Twenty percent of employment has grown in the midwest, because of vehicle manufacturing and production has grown, as well as investments from the suppliers,” said Ann Wilson, senior vice president, Government Affairs, Motor, and Equipment Manufacturers Association. “Steel and aluminum tariffs raise the price of domestic steel and aluminum has increased 50% from last year. Most developers are small manufacturers. They have to pay more for their inputs of steel. President Trump has a study on his desk, that has not been made public that could put a 25% tariff on all imported automobile parts. Companies like O’Reilly and NAPA are not investing in the United States, including Ohio, because of the uncertainty whether or not they can make imports. Employment will decrease and consumer prices will increase.”
The beverages industry has also seen some troubling results, according to Cleveland Whiskey founder and CEO Tom Lix.
“In 2017, 15% of business came from exports to the UK, they were predicted to go up to 20% by 2018. By 2018 there was not a single bottle of Cleveland Whiskey sold in Europe. The tariff causes the prices on the whiskey to be marked up. The tariff caused the whiskey prices to be increased by 50%. Cleveland Whiskey had to fire two employees, because they could not afford to have them,” Lix said. “We buy things from around the world everyday and it is crazy to me that we aren’t encouraging those kinds of trades. The fact that we are manipulating these trade deals and using it as a political tool is absolutely absurd, and it hurts a whole lot of people. Mark my words, the economy won’t stay this good forever. We are making things worse for ourselves.”
The group was also joined by Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade for the American Chemistry Council as well as Mark Fisher of the Council of the Great Lakes Region and Farmers for Free Trade co-founder Angela Marshall Hofmann.Share
https://www.ocj.com/2019/05/ohio-industry-leaders-join-together-to-denounce-tariff-increase/

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(ACC Mentioned) US Farmers, Industry Urge Trump to Resolve China Trade Dispute Quickly

May 7, 2019 | AFP (In Yahoo News)

By Heather SCOTT with Ryan McMorrow in Beijing

Washington (AFP) - US soy farmers and industry on Tuesday urged President Donald Trump to pull back from his tariff threat and quickly bring an end to the trade dispute with China.
That message was reinforced by financial markets, as US stocks fell by more than two percent for the first time in months amid concerns the renewed trade tensions could scuttle a deal.
Trump has vowed to more than double the tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods starting Friday, after US negotiators accused Beijing of reneging on commitments made during months of talks that aim to reduce the US trade deficit, clamp down on theft of US technology and reduce China's massive subsidies.
American soy farmers have found themselves in the crosshairs of Chinese retaliation, and prolonging the battle will be even more damaging, Davie Stephens president of the American Soybean Association (ASA), said in a statement.
Stephens, a grower from Clinton, Kentucky, said "farmers are in a desperate situation. We need a positive resolution of this ongoing tariff dispute, not further escalation of tensions."
China is a key market for US soy bean exports, but last year sales plunged by about 75 percent compared to 2017 to just over $3 billion, after China retaliated against US farmers with 25 percent tariffs.
Stephens said prices already are depressed, so "we need the China market reopened to US soybean exports within weeks, not months or longer," and before the 2019 harvest begins in September.
"The financial and emotional toll on US soybean farmers cannot be ignored."
The chemical industry is facing similar difficulties, and also called for the White House to work fast.
"The risks of continuing to use tariffs as a negotiating tactic with China are simply too high -- and any potential benefits still unclear," American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley said in a statement.
"China supplies the United States with several chemicals which are not available anywhere else and which are critical inputs to US manufacturing," he said, noting that China is also is the number three US export market.
- Talks will go on -
Despite the tougher US rhetoric, China said Tuesday its top trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, would lead Beijing's delegation to the talks in Washington on Thursday and Friday, a day later than originally scheduled.
"China always believes that mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit are the premise and the basis for reaching an agreement. Adding tariffs will not solve any problem," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular media briefing.
Trump's new tariff announcements have tanked stock markets worldwide as investors, like worried US farmers and businesses, had been banking on a resolution to the year-long conflict that has engulfed $360 billion in two-way trade.
Markets slumped even further on Tuesday, and Wall Street, which had been less pessimistic, fell more than two percent in afternoon trading.
US officials say the world's two largest economies had been close to an agreement but they claim Beijing reversed course in recent days.
"Over the course of the last week or so, we've seen an erosion in commitments by China, I would say, retreating from commitments that have already been made in our judgment," US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was quoted as saying in media reports on Monday.
He said the tariffs would increase at 12:01 am (0401 GMT) on Friday.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described the negotiations as 90 percent complete but told reporters that in recent days the talks had gone "substantially backward," according to the media reports.
Trump vowed Sunday to ratchet up existing tariffs this week and also to extend the 25 percent punitive duties to the remaining $350 billion in Chinese goods imported into the country each year.
- Growth fears -
The tensions have renewed fears that the trade war could spill over into the global economy.
Speaking in Paris, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said "tensions between the United States and China are the threat for the world economy."
Oxford Economics warned that escalating the tariffs to the remaining Chinese goods, which would be expected to spark further retaliation from Beijing, would cut 0.3 percentage points off US growth.
But William Reinsch, a trade policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cautioned that China will never meet all the US demands, which complicates Trump's strategy.
"The most important things are the things the Chinese won't give," he told AFP, including reducing subsidies and subjecting state-owned enterprises to market forces.
"The Chinese are not going to do either of those things," so "the path to political victory for him is a narrow one," he said.
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-plays-hardball-china-ahead-key-talks-145934061--finance.html

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(ACC Mentioned) Market Definition: Global Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services Market

May 7, 2019 | The Market Research News

Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services are used in the industries to reduce the nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide gas emission, which is the major reason for acid rain and photochemical oxidation in the environment which causes many respiratory diseases. DeNOx systems and services are required in many industries such as coal-fired power plants, gas turbines, natural gas-fired power plants, biomass plants, and in industries such as metal processing units and cement plants. Gas emissions from industries are growing globally, which has made it necessary to implement strict government regulations. According to BASF Company, in 2017, the global chemical industry grew by 3.5% and the European Union expanded at a much faster rate by 3.8% because of growing demand from local industries and higher exports. As per the American Chemistry Council, US chemical industry grew by 3.7% in 2017 and is expected to grow by 4.5% in 2018, and the industry is expected to deliver USD 1 trillion in revenue by 2020. These above factors exhibit that the chemical industries around the globe is growing and will drive the demand for Industrial DeNOx Systems & Services.
https://themarketresearchnews.com/2019/05/07/global-industrial-denox-systems-services-market-growth-analysis-2019-by-mitsubishi-heavy-industries-ltd-alstom-babcock-wilcox-enterprises-and-others/

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(ACC Mentioned) Aussie Shares Slide After US President Donald Trump Ramped Up Trade War Tensions With China

May 8, 2019 | News.com.au

By James Hall

The Australian share market has fallen at the open after a dismal trading session on Wall Street overnight where investors were spooked by President Donald Trump’s renewed tariff threat on China.
The benchmark ASX200 had lost nearly one per cent shortly after the day’s trading began.
Mr Trump vowed to more than double the tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from Friday as Beijing is being criticised for reneging on commitments made during months of talks that aimed to reduce the US trade deficit.
US negotiators also wanted China to clamp down on the theft of US technology and reduce its massive subsidies.
American businesses had been hopeful the trade war between the two major economies was coming to an end, but Mr Trump’s comments spruiked fear in the stock market and sent the Dow Jones sliding by nearly 2 per cent — its second-biggest daily percentage drop of the year.
The Aussie market fell with it and all sectors on the ASX were in negative territory just 15 minutes after the open.
“Over the course of the last week or so, we’ve seen an erosion in commitments by China, I would say, retreating from commitments that have already been made in our judgment,” US trade representative Robert Lighthizer was quoted as saying in media reports on Monday.
He said the tariffs would increase on Friday.
US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin described the negotiations as 90 per cent complete but told reporters in recent days the talks had gone “substantially backward”, according to the media reports.
Mr Trump vowed on Sunday to ratchet up existing tariffs this week and also extend the 25 per cent punitive duties to the remaining $350 billion in Chinese goods imported into the country each year.
Despite the tougher US rhetoric, China said on Tuesday its top trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, would lead Beijing’s delegation to the talks in Washington on Thursday and Friday, a day later than originally scheduled.
“China always believes that mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit are the premise and the basis for reaching an agreement. Adding tariffs will not solve any problem,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular media briefing.
FARMERS BEG TRUMP
American soy farmers have found themselves in the crosshairs of Chinese retaliation, and prolonging the battle will be even more damaging, American Soybean Association (ASA) president Davie Stephens said in a statement.
Stephens, a grower from Clinton, Kentucky, said “farmers are in a desperate situation. We need a positive resolution of this ongoing tariff dispute, not further escalation of tensions.” China is a key market for US soy bean exports, but last year sales plunged by about 75 per cent compared with 2017 to just over $3 billion, after China retaliated against US farmers with 25 per cent tariffs.
Mr Stephens said prices already were depressed, so “we need the China market reopened to US soybean exports within weeks, not months or longer” and before the 2019 harvest begins in September.
“The financial and emotional toll on US soybean farmers cannot be ignored.”
The chemical industry is facing similar difficulties and also called for the White House to work fast.
“The risks of continuing to use tariffs as a negotiating tactic with China are simply too high — and any potential benefits still unclear,” American Chemistry Council president Cal Dooley said in a statement.
“China supplies the United States with several chemicals which are not available anywhere else and which are critical inputs to US manufacturing,” he added, noting that China is also is the number three US export market.
GROWTH FEARS
The tensions have renewed fears the trade war could spill over into the global economy.
Speaking in Paris, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said “tensions between the United States and China are the threat for the world economy”.
Oxford Economics warned escalating the tariffs to the remaining Chinese goods, which would be expected to spark further retaliation from Beijing, would cut 0.3 percentage points off US growth.
But William Reinsch, a trade policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cautioned that China would never meet all the US demands, which complicates Mr Trump’s strategy.
“The most important things are the things the Chinese won’t give,” he told AFP, including reducing subsidies and subjecting state-owned enterprises to market forces.
“The Chinese are not going to do either of those things,” so “the path to political victory for him is a narrow one,” he added.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/us-president-donald-trump-urged-to-resolve-uschina-tensions-as-wall-street-plunges/news-story/90bd75afe1b29ad03af548a79a32cb5e

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TSCA News

TSCA Inventory Rule Case Raises Questions about Substantiation, Reverse Engineering

May 8, 2019 | EHS Daily

By William C. Schillaci

In September 2017, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to find five aspects of the EPA’s final rule, TSCA Inventory Notification (Active-Inactive) Requirements (Aug. 11, 2017, Federal Register (FR)), unlawful. On April 26, 2019, a three-judge panel responded by denying four of the EDF’s challenges, therefore leaving those provisions of the Inventory Rule in place. But the panel did agree that the rule impermissibly exempted chemical companies from having to substantiate why chemicals they claim are entitled to be listed on the confidential portion of the Inventory cannot be discoverable through reverse engineering. Without vacatur, the panel ordered a limited remand, directing the Agency to address its “arbitrary elimination of substantiation questions regarding reverse engineering.”
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires the EPA to publish an inventory of chemicals manufactured or processed in the United States. The 2016 TSCA Amendments further directed the Agency to issue a rule establishing a process for updating the Inventory. In the Inventory Rule, the Agency set the criteria chemical companies must meet to protect the identity of chemicals in the Inventory. About 18,000 of the Inventory’s 86,000 entries are classified as confidential.
Basically, companies acquire confidentiality protection by certifying that they are taking reasonable measures to protect the confidentiality of the information and that disclosure is not otherwise required by law. They must also certify that the information is not readily discoverable through reverse engineering. In TSCA, Congress requires that companies substantiate the need for secrecy and that the EPA require the substantiation of confidentiality claims.EPA’s Exclusion ‘Nonsensical’
According to the panel, the EPA’s omission of any inquiry into a chemical identity’s susceptibility to reverse engineering is a flat excision of “a statutorily required criterion from the substantiation process.” The court added that the Agency’s explanation for excising that criterion was, “nonsensically,” a denial that it had done so. Specifically, the EPA explained that the omission is “intended to more succinctly secure answers for the basis of the [confidentiality] assertions[.]”
“But succinctness means no unnecessary words; it does not mean no words at all,” responded the panel. “That is precisely what the EPA did here. Lest there be any doubt, the Agency conceded at oral argument that the Inventory Rule eliminated the only questions that substantiate the assertion that ‘the information is not readily discoverable through reverse engineering.’”
“[I]t makes no sense to treat as confidential the chemical identity of a substance that can readily be discovered through reverse engineering—as the EPA itself agrees,” said the panel. “Yet the EPA’s Rule offers no sensible explanation at all for that gap in substantiation, nor does it even acknowledge the consequence of its omission. That error is fatal. The Inventory Rule is arbitrary and capricious to the extent that it omits any substantiation requirement pertaining to reverse engineering.”Original Claimants, Export, Et Al.
Each of the following EDF claims was rejected by the panel.
Claim: The final rule impermissibly allowed a company to maintain existing confidentiality status for a chemical even if it was not the company that originally obtained that status from the EPA.
Court response: “The relevant statutory language is silent as to whether a company may maintain an existing claim of confidentiality if it was not the original claimant,” said the panel. “Congress thus left that question of implementation to the expertise of the EPA.”
According to the panel, the law’s “… sole limitation on the class of manufacturers and processors that may wish to maintain an existing confidentiality claim is that they manufacture or process ‘a chemical substance on the confidential portion of the Inventory.”
The court also notes practical considerations. For example, if the EDF’s argument that a company that did not obtain the original confidentiality status would need to file a fresh request was found valid, the EPA would have only 90 days for review in contrast to the 7 years for review allowed by the statute.
Claim: The Inventory Rule failed to “mirror” three provisions in the statute—specifically, that the EPA (i) review claims within 90 days; (ii) inform the claimant of the EPA’s denial of a confidentiality claim and allow only 30 days for appeal; and (iii) publicly disclose any nonconfidential aspects of its confidentiality decisions.
Response: Rather than not including that language in the rule, it was more important to the panel that the rule did not contradict those statutory obligations. “The Inventory Rule’s provisions simply complement and elaborate upon some of the statutory requirements without displacing the others,” said the panel.
Claim: The Inventory Rule fails to implement the statutory scheme for assigning a unique public identifier for each chemical identity kept confidential.
Response: The panel agrees that the rule does not implement this requirement. However, the panel continues, the statute does not require that the EPA develop and implement a unique identifier rule by a specific date. “And it is not unreasonable for the EPA to defer that process while it first starts the process of determining how many and which chemical substances will be accorded confidential treatment,” states the panel. “It is not for us to ‘second-guess EPA’s decision to prioritize’ those regulatory tasks.”
Claim: The EPA impermissibly excluded export-only chemicals from the Inventory Rule’s requirement that chemical companies notify the EPA of chemical substances being manufactured or processed. The EDF argued that because Congress included exported chemicals under TSCA Section 2607 (Reporting and Retention of Information), the EPA could not exclude exported chemicals from the Inventory Rule.
Response: The statute states that the EPA must require manufacturers and processors to notify the Agency of each chemical substance on the Inventory that the manufacturer or processor has manufactured or processed for a nonexempt commercial purpose. But the law does not provide a definition for a nonexempt commercial purpose. Without any statutory guidance as to what counts as a nonexempt commercial purpose, the EPA concluded it was consistent with the Act to exclude, among other things, “[t]he manufacturing or processing of a chemical substance solely for export from the United States.” Also, the law does not explain what it means to “apply” Section 2607—a nearly 4,000-word part of the statute—to exported chemicals. “In light of this congressional silence, the Rule’s narrow excision of exports from one reporting requirement passes muster,” stated the panel.
The DC panel’s opinion in Environmental Defense Fund v. EPA is here.
https://ehsdailyadvisor.blr.com/2019/05/tsca-inventory-rule-case-raises-questions-about-substantiation-reverse-engineering/

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) E.P.A. Leaders Disregarded Agency’s Experts in Issuing Asbestos Rule, Memos Show

May 8, 2019 | The New York Times

By Lisa Friedman

WASHINGTON — Senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency disregarded the advice of their own scientists and lawyers in April when the agency issued a rule that restricted but did not ban asbestos, according to two internal memos.
Because of its fiber strength and resistance to heat, asbestos has long been used in insulation and construction materials. It is also is a known carcinogen. Last month’s rule kept open a way for manufacturers to adopt new uses for asbestos, or return to certain older uses, but only with E.P.A. approval.
Andrew Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, said when the rule was issued that it would significantly strengthen public health protections. But in the memos, dated Aug. 10, more than a dozen of E.P.A.’s own experts urged the agency to ban asbestos outright, as do most other industrialized nations.
“Rather than allow for (even with restrictions) any new uses for asbestos, E.P.A. should seek to ban all new uses of asbestos because the extreme harm from this chemical substance outweighs any benefit — and because there are adequate alternatives to asbestos,” staff members wrote.
Michael Abboud, an E.P.A. spokesman, declined to address why the Trump administration had acted against the advice of the agency’s in-house experts, saying in a statement, “We don’t comment on deliberative intra-agency comments.” He referred The New York Times to the agency’s news release about the rule.
Asbestos production in the United States stopped in 2002 but it is still imported to produce chemicals used in manufacturing items like household bleach, bulletproof vests and electrical insulation. Inhaling asbestos fibers, even in small amounts, is the primary cause of a cancer called malignant mesothelioma.
Mike Walls, vice president of regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, said his organization objected to any effort to impose a ban before the completion of a separate, congressionally mandated evaluation of asbestos. The conclusions of that review, due by December, could help determine if there will be further regulation or a ban.
He said the industries that still used asbestos in the United States operated under strict safety regulations. “The risks of asbestos can be managed,” Mr. Walls said. “We ought not to be imposing regulation simply on the basis of hazard.”
The internal memos show that E.P.A. staff members considered the agency’s review process and the rule itself seriously flawed. They were first obtained by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, an advocacy group, and shared with The New York Times. Their authenticity was confirmed by people inside the E.P.A.
Specifically, agency experts criticized the evaluation for studying only six fibers of asbestos, a scientific approach they said was “decades old,” and said the process had disregarded other fiber types that are known to be harmful. They also criticized the review for considering only lung cancer and mesothelioma as possible harmful effects of asbestos exposure.
Of greatest concern, they wrote, was the fact that the evaluation excluded the so-called legacy effects from the mishandling of asbestos. For example, the staff members pointed to a $45 million cleanup of a former Marine barracks in Oregon that was contaminated with asbestos when old buildings were improperly demolished.
“Regulated industries contact E.P.A. when they have been surprised to find out that their buildings and other facilities were constructed with asbestos, when they had been assuming asbestos had been banned a long time before. If asbestos was banned, then these surprises would not continue to take place,” the staff members wrote.
On Wednesday the E.P.A. assistant administrator for chemical safety, Alexandra Dunn, will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee against legislation that aims to ban asbestos.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/climate/epa-asbestos-rule-scientists.html

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(ACC Mentioned) Texas Legislature Passes Bill To Advance Chemical Recycling

May 7, 2019 | Recycling Today

By Kelly Maile

Supporters say HB 1953 would increase recycling and reuse of traditionally nonrecyclable, single-use plastics.
If signed by Governor Greg Abbott, Texas will become the sixth state—and the third state this year—to pass legislation to promote advanced plastics recycling and recovery technologies, which convert post-consumer plastics into valuable raw materials using chemical recycling.
Texas Legislature passed HB 1953 May 6. The bill would prohibit the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) from considering postconsumer polymers or recyclable, recoverable feedstocks as solid waste “if they were converted using pyrolysis or gasification into a valuable product.”
The American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, applauded Texas Legislature for signing the bill in a recent news release.
“Texas and a growing number of states are leading the way by creating pathways for advanced recycling and recovery to create value from post-use plastics, while keeping them out of landfills,” remarks Craig Cookson, senior director of recycling and recovery, ACC. “Legislation such as HB 1953 attracts new businesses and supports job creation by treating post-use plastics as raw materials for ‘manufacturing’ and not as ‘waste.’ We thank Representative Ed Thompson and Senator Kelly Hancock for their leadership in managing this important legislation and urge Governor Abbott to sign this bill into law.”
Texas is the largest chemical manufacturing state in the U.S. with more than $117 billion of industry investment. Texas joins Florida, Wisconsin, Georgia, Iowa and Tennessee in passing similar legislation, “reinforcing states’ growing recognition of the economic and environmental benefits of recovering post-use plastic resources," ACC says.
“Plastics are valuable materials that should be used and reused,” states Rick Wagner, sustainability policy and program manager, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, The Woodlands, Texas. “By expanding chemical recycling facilities, we can repurpose more plastics and meet the growing demand for recycled plastics. HB 1953 will help make this a reality in Texas.”
A recent ACC report found the potential economic impact of expanding advanced plastic recycling and recovering technologies in the U.S. to be nearly $10 billion. A recent Closed Loop Partners, New York, report also found the demand for recycled plastics is growing. ACC says if chemical recycling technology companies meet growing demand, they have potential revenue opportunities of $120 billion in the U.S. and Canada.
In Texas, it’s estimated that converting the state’s postconsumer plastics into transportation fuel could power 859,700 cars per year. Experts also determined that converting just 25 percent of the state’s postconsumer plastics into manufacturing feedstocks and transportation fuels could support 40 advanced recycling and recovery facilities and generate $501 million in economic output annually.
"Advanced recycling and recovery technologies provide a wide array of opportunities for Texas,” Texas Chemical Council President and CEO Hector Rivero says.
For more about the bill, click here.
https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/texas-house-senate-chemical-recycling-bill/

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(ACC Mentioned) Prop 65 Fact Sheet for Styrene Includes Perplexing Recommendation

May 8, 2019 | The National Law Review

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recently posted a fact sheet on styrene on its Proposition 65 warning website. That fact sheet includes a confusing recommendation concerning polystyrene. The Proposition 65 warnings website was a rulemaking initiative undertaken by OEHHA to increase the level of detail provided about chemicals on the Proposition 65 lists. (See the PackagingLaw.com article, California’s Prop 65 Lead Agency Website has Launched, for more background information on the site.)
OEHHA listed styrene as a carcinogen under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, also known as Proposition 65, on April 22, 2016, and on May 4, 2017, the California Office of Administrative Law approved a No Significant Risk Level (NSRL) for styrene of 27 µg per day.
Proposition 65 requires companies to provide a warning if exposure from the use of a product to a listed carcinogen will exceed a No Significant Risk Level derived using regulatory criteria. For some substances, like styrene, OEHHA has published NSRLs, which are deemed “safe harbors,” meaning that products associated with exposures below the NSRL need not carry a warning statement.
The styrene fact sheet suggests that “Small amounts of styrene can be transferred to some food from polystyrene-based food-contact items such as drinking cups, plates, and other containers.” One way to reduce potential exposure to styrene, suggested by OEHHA on the fact sheet is: “If possible, do not store or microwave food in polystyrene-based containers.” Including this recommendation is perplexing since, in a final statement of reasons supporting the NSRL for styrene of 27 µg per day, OEHHA stated:
“It should be emphasized that the chemical that is listed under Proposition 65 is styrene, not polystyrene. As noted by [the American Chemical Council], styrene is the monomer used for production of polystyrene. A warning for styrene would only be required in cases where residual levels of styrene in polystyrene food packaging materials result in exposures that pose a significant cancer risk, i.e., styrene exposures greater than 27 µg/day. The levels of such residual styrene in polystyrene food packaging materials are generally thought to be fairly low in most cases.” (See https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/crnr/styrenefsor05112017.pdf.)
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/prop-65-fact-sheet-styrene-includes-perplexing-recommendation

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New Study Claims 43 States Expose Millions To Dangerous Chemical In Drinking Water

May 8, 2019 | CBS News

By Brian Pascus

A new report by the non-profit Environmental Working Group and Northeastern University finds people in nearly every state in the country are exposed to unhealthy drinking water. According to the researchers, 43 states have locations, including drinking water sites, contaminated with PFAS chemicals. The CDC says these chemicals have been linked to health issues that include birth defects, cancers and infertility.
The study compiled information taken from Pentagon data and water utility reports. It shows an estimated 19 million people are exposed to contaminated water. Researchers found at least 610 contaminated locations ranging from public water systems and military bases to civilian airports, industrial plants, dumps and firefighter training sites.
"This should be frightening to all Americans in many ways," David Andrews, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group, told CBSN's Anne-Marie Green. "These chemicals... don't break down in our body and they don't break down in our environment and they actually stick to our blood. So levels tend to increase over time."
The Environmental Working Group said in a statement that its interactive map is the most comprehensive resource available to track contamination with a class of chemicals known as PFAS in the United States. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, PFASs are used in a broad range of consumer goods, such as cleaners, textiles, leather, paper and paints, firefighting foams, and wire insulation.
"These chemicals can impact a lot of different health systems, cause numerous health problems, everything from testicular and kidney cancer, heart to the liver, heart to the thyroid," Andrews said, adding that the chemicals can also impact childhood development, low birth weight and immune system health.
"The Environmental Protection Agency has utterly failed to address PFAS with the seriousness this crisis demands, leaving local communities and states to grapple with a complex problem rooted in the failure of the federal chemical regulatory system," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, which has studied these compounds for almost two decades. "EPA must move swiftly to set a truly health-protective legal limit for all PFAS chemicals, requiring utilities to clean up contaminated water supplies."
"The updated map shows that PFAS contamination is truly a nationwide problem, impacting millions of Americans in hundreds of communities," said Phil Brown, a professor of sociology and health sciences at Northeastern University and director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute.
This report comes less than one week after another study by the Environmental Working Group claimed a collection of toxic chemical pollutants found in California drinking water could be responsible for an excess of 15,000 estimated cancer cases over the coming decades. Scientists published that study in the journal Environmental Health after finding toxins and carcinogens in more than 2,700 California community water systems between 2011 and 2015.
A review of drinking water contaminants regulations show the EPA has two categories of drinking water standards: a primary standard which focuses on harmful containments in water, and a secondary standard which focuses on water that causes skin and tooth discoloration and has either poor taste, odor or color.
According to the Environmental Working Group, the EPA does not have a legally enforceable limit for PFAS chemicals in drinking water.
"The EPA has set a health advisory value, but it's not a legal binding limit," Andrews told CBS News. "Part of the problem is they haven't set a new legal drinking water limit for any contaminant in over two decades. The whole system of regulating chemicals that may end up in our water and setting limits is broken and the agency is really falling behind the science here."
His organization is proposing a limit for all PFAS chemicals of 1 ppt, or part per trillion — a much smaller amount than regulators at other agencies have deemed safe.
The Environmental Working Group has sometimes come under fire for its research methods and for warnings that are not in agreement with other global organizations.
In a statement to CBS News, the EPA said in part, "EPA is moving forward with the maximum contaminant level (MCL) process outlined in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) for PFOA and PFOS. The process prescribed by the Act ensures scientific integrity and transparency when developing regulations for contaminants in public water systems."
The agency released a PFAS Action Plan this year outlining "concrete steps the agency is taking to address PFAS and to protect public health."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/drinking-water-may-contain-pfas-chemicals-in-43-states-according-to-new-study-by-environmental-working-group/

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EPA Says PV29 Is Perfectly Safe. The EU, Citing Concerns And A Dearth of Data, Begs To Differ.

May 7, 2019 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Richard Denison

In contrast to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) asserted clean bill of health for Pigment Violet 29 (PV29) in its draft risk evaluation, authorities under the European Union’s REACH program have formally declared the chemical to be a suspected persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substance and a suspected very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) substance. Either designation, if confirmed, would classify PV29 as a substance of very high concern (SVHC) under the EU’s REACH Regulation.
In EDF’s earlier comments on EPA’s draft risk evaluation, we noted that PV29 had been proposed to be so listed under REACH and to undergo a full substance evaluation in 2021. Since we filed those comments, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published an update to its Community Rolling Action Plan (CoRAP) that now formally designates PV29 as a “suspected PBT/vPvB” that will be subject to a full substance evaluation. The listing is accompanied by a “justification document” for PV29’s designation.
The justification document, prepared by the Belgian Competent Authority (BE CA) under REACH and endorsed by REACH authorities, echoes many of the concerns about PV29 and EPA’s draft risk evaluation that EDF had raised in our earlier comments.
BE CA notes that “the registrants [of the chemical under REACH] state in their dossier that the substance[] [is] neither soluble in water nor soluble in organic solvents, therefore a very low bioavailability is expected.” But with respect to water solubility, BE CA goes on to state that it considers “the reliability of the water solubility and partition coefficient data for [PV29] as questionable” due to the divergence of values derived from both direct measurements and estimations using predictive models.
Water solubility: The Belgian authority specifically questions the registrants’ reliance on the single water solubility value of 0.01 milligrams per liter – the very same value EPA relies on extensively in its draft risk evaluation to dismiss a host of potential concerns. (We again note with particular concern the registrants’ selective deletion of much higher water solubility values for PV29 from two study summaries in its dossier – deletions that EDF discovered and documented in a recent blog post.)
BE CA concludes: “Because the estimated values substantially diverge from the value given in the registration dossier and because water solubility is a crucial element, it seems appropriate not to use the value presented by [the registrants] as an argument to deny the B-[bioaccumulation] concern.”
Bioaccumulation potential:  Regarding solubility in organic solvents (an indirect measure of fat solubility and hence bioaccumulation potential), BE CA raises similar concerns about the lack of measured data and the variability of model estimates and concludes that “a reliable conclusion on the bioavailability of this substance is not possible based on the currently available data.”
BE CA flags as a concern the lack of experimental data on bioaccumulation in aquatic or terrestrial organisms. It also points to other data that suggests potential for bioaccumulation in air-breathing terrestrial organisms, including mammals.
Persistence:  Regarding persistence, BE CA states: “Screening information does not indicate (bio)degradation. In view of the structure of the substance[], it is reasonable to expect that the P and the vP criterion are met for [this] substance[] and [structure-activity relationship] estimations support this concern.” The Belgian authority also notes that the registrants’ assessment “does not consider the possibility that in field conditions (slow) degradation of the parent compounds takes place.”
Toxicity:  BE CA then notes the dearth of ecotoxicity data for PV29 other than for acute aquatic toxicity. Pointing to the substance’s “wide dispersive use, high tonnage and the environmental exposure,” BE CA concludes that a “potential risk [to] the environment cannot be excluded.”
Data gaps:  Finally, BE CA identifies numerous additional needed data on toxicity, fate and behavior, and physical-chemical properties, consistent with our flagging of major data gaps that have not been acknowledged or addressed by EPA.
In finalizing its risk evaluation, EPA needs to take seriously and forthrightly address the data gaps, uncertainty and potential risks of PV29 including those flagged by EU authorities, rather than continue to rely on poor analysis and wholly insufficient information to support its questionable assertion that the substance does not present any unreasonable risks.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2019/05/07/epa-says-pv29-is-perfectly-safe-the-eu-citing-concerns-and-a-dearth-of-data-begs-to-differ/

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Canada Clears Four Epoxy Resins

May 7, 2019 | Chemical Watch

Canada has concluded that four epoxy resins used in paints, coatings and plastics are not harmful at current exposure levels.
The final screening assessment – published on 4 May – reaffirms the conclusions of the March 2018 draftscreening assessment.
The group includes three diglycidyl ethers of bisphenol A (DGEBA epoxy resins) and one novolac epoxy resin, specifically: phenol, 4,4'-(1-methylethylidene)bis-, polymer with 2,2'-[(1-methylethylidene)bis(4,1-phenyleneoxymethylene)]bis[oxirane];phenol, 4,4'-(1-methylethylidene)bis-, polymer with 2-(chloromethyl)oxirane;oxirane, 2,2'-[(1-methylethylidene)bis(4,1-phenyleneoxymethylene)]bis-, homopolymer; andphenol, polymer with formaldehyde, glycidyl ether.
The substances were previously evaluated under the second phase of polymer rapid screening, which found that they – and 47 others – required further assessment due to potential human health or ecological risks.
However, none of these four epoxy resins have proved to meet any of the criteria set out in section 64 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa), so no follow-up regulatory risk management measures are planned.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77152/canada-clears-four-epoxy-resins

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Eurometaux Suggests More ‘Holistic’ EU Restriction Process

May 7, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Caterina Tani

Trade body sets recommendations as part of REACH review action follow-up
The REACH restriction process should better incorporate socioeconomic factors and links between other EU legislation, metals trade body Eurometaux said.
A "good quality" restriction should be focused "on the risk of concern, while being holistic in assessing its risk reduction efficiency and cost/benefit effectiveness, including impacts on other EU environmental and health policies". These concern climate change, the circular economy and occupational exposure limits (OELs).

Its comments come in a paper addressing the REACH review action to improve the restriction procedure, circulated after the meeting of the Competent Authorities for REACH and CLP (Caracal) on 19-20 March.

It sets a series of recommendations on how to augment the restriction process.

More clarity about the choice of the restriction pathway and the risks aimed to be covered is needed, it said. To cater for this, a more extensive risk management option analysis (RMOA) should be carried out, and include some suggestions for a call for evidence.

Earlier identification of the scope of the restriction and uses of a chemical is "quite critical" in defining the impact and proportionality of the measure, Eurometaux added.

It recommended that when carrying out a public consultation on a restriction, Echa should include a question on which downstream user sector could be affected, as, Eurometaux said, industry often "waits too long" to pass on this information.
The trade body also proposed that the authority responsible for the Annex XV entry organises a webinar to indicate the intentions and what information is needed.Consultation challenges
The timing of the public consultation is not aligned with the drafting of the opinions in Echa's Risk Assessment (Rac) and Socio-economic Analysis (Seac) Committees. This "raises frustrations" with those who submitted information, giving them the impression that their information was "not appropriately considered".

To overcome the issue, it suggested consortia and downstream users could:define, after two months, the main issues concerning the scope or covered substances (including exemptions);provide, after four months, as much relevant quantitative evidence as possible, to improve the assessment of the opinion, or justify the exemptions and indicate what information they would further like to propose; andprovide, by the sixth month, final information "preferably focused on further clarifying evidence earlier submitted".
In a separate Caracal paper, soap and detergents group Aise also addressed the issue of timing. It is "key that industry is given sufficient time to prepare" and that dossiers "are published as soon as possible and widely publicised to all stakeholders", it said.NGO reaction
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) raised concerns in its paper about Seac’s response to companies asking for exemptions.
Such requests through the public consultation have "almost been enough for Seac to accept that a derogation is needed".

Echa should clarify the information that companies asking for derogations should submit though public consultations "in order to properly justify their case", EEB added.

EEB also questioned the role of the committees in the opinion-making process to amend the scope and add derogations to the original dossier submitter proposal.

The "sweeping and arbitrary nature of these changes is of great concern", it added.

The original dossier submitter proposal should be presented to the Commission and member states side by side with the proposed modifications from the committees, and with estimated assessments of the impacts of changes (in particular derogations).

This, EEB added, "would clarify the changes to the scope and efficacy of the original restriction proposal".
https://chemicalwatch.com/77162/eurometaux-suggests-more-holistic-eu-restriction-process

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NGO Pushes For Action on Chemicals Ahead Of EU Summit

May 8, 2019 | Chemical Watch

Member states should commit to closing regulatory loopholes concerning chemicals at an EU summit on 9 May, an NGO has said.
The informal meeting in Sibiu, Romania, will bring together the heads of state or government of the EU, Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and president of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani.
In a 29 April letter addressed to the Romanian presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) called for delegates to close regulatory gaps on cosmetics, toys and food packaging.
Additionally, the Council could, HEAL said, input into the general update of the EU regulatory framework on endocrine disruptors, and "mandate the European Commission to update the first and still current strategy, just twenty years after was published".
The EU executive issued a Communication on its new strategy in November, but HEAL said this lackedproposals to control EDCs across all EU laws as well as a concrete action plan.
Romania's presidency ends in June, when Finland takes over for the next six-month term.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77218/ngo-pushes-for-action-on-chemicals-ahead-of-eu-summit

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When Chemicals Are Used To Scare You About Food

May 8, 2019 | Washington Post

By Cara Rosenbloom

Would you worry if you knew your food contained sucrose octanoate esters or tocopherols? They might sound frightening, but don’t fret. These substances in packaged foods are also known as sugar, fat and vitamin E.
But see what I did there? I used chemical names to evoke fear by telling you those items were in your food. For a moment, you were probably wary of ingesting tocopherols. Scare tactics like this are often used by marketers to make people buy one product over another — especially organic over conventionally grown foods, which consumers spend billions of dollars on annually.
The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization that focuses on human health and environmentalism, contributes to this fear. In March, it released a report called “Organic: The Original Clean Food,” which asserted that organic packaged foods are safer than conventional packaged foods, because they don’t contain toxic pesticides or added chemicals. The report says “organic packaged foods are the only clean option for consumers.” That’s a scary thought considering the high cost of organic products — an organic 50-gram chocolate bar is $4.99 while a conventional one costs about $1.50.
(This is probably an opportune moment to point out that a small amount of the EWG’s funding comes from the organic food industry and that many of its reports and claims have been heavily criticized by members of the scientific community.)
As a dietitian, I encourage people to choose fresh food more often than processed foods, whether organic or not. Organic cookies, chips and soda are not healthier than conventional versions. But the EWG says conventional packaged foods are filled with “chemicals.”
This is where I remind you that “chemical” is not synonymous with “dangerous.”
“The word chemical just means a composition of things — air, water, soil — everything is a form of chemicals,” says Elvira de Mejia, a professor of food science and toxicology at the University of Illinois. “For human safety, we need to consider a chemical’s quality and the quantity that’s used, not just worry about a scary-sounding name.”
Just about any chemical can be toxic at a given dose, says de Mejia. But that does not mean we need to fear them. The EWG report lists chemicals in conventional food and their associated risks — cancer, hormonal problems, DNA damage — but fails to address one very important issue: The dose makes the poison.
[It seems like nutritional studies often conflict. Here’s how to decipher them.]
“Some chemicals in food are toxic at high doses, but who is eating high doses of chemicals?” asks Josh Bloom, director of chemical and pharmaceutical science at the American Council on Science and Health,which has been criticized for accepting funding from industry sources. He explains that there are two ways to look at potential danger: hazard and risk. A hazard means a chemical has the potential to cause harm. But risk is the likelihood that a chemical will actually pose problems — which may only happen if ingested at high levels.
“Those terms are very different,” Bloom says. “Some EWG claims in this report are about safe chemicals that are fed to rats in enormous amounts over their lifetime, and it in no way has anything to do with what humans might be exposed to. They don’t consider risk, and ‘chemical’ is just a word used for scare tactics.”
The EWG also has a habit of mentioning substances used while manufacturing food additives that don’t appear in the final product. For example, the report says the manufacturing of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose produces carcinogens such as formaldehyde. “They are criticizing how preservatives are made, not for what they contain when added to foods,” de Meija says. “At the end, these preservatives don’t actually contain formaldehyde.”
I asked EWG dietitian Dawn Undurraga if there’s research to show that the chemicals mentioned in this report cause harm in the amounts used in the commercial food supply. She did not provide any numbers, but cited a 2019 French research paper connecting ultra-processed foods, which contain additives and preservatives, to an increased risk of mortality.
Here’s the problem: The study does not look at the difference between organic processed food and conventional processed food. The fact is that all ultra-processed foods are linked to poor health because of their combination of sodium, sugar, trans fat and additives.
But Undurraga still stands behind organic foods because she believes that the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) food regulatory system is more stringent than the FDA’s conventional food safety program, and that that makes organic foods safer. She explained that under NOP, there are only 40 synthetic substances that can be added to organic foods, and the list is reviewed every five years by the National Organic Standards Board. The FDA’s conventional food regulatory system allows a greater number of synthetic substances to be used, and they are reviewed less often.
The EWG also believes that the FDA system has a flaw, which it calls the “Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) loophole.” The EWG says conventional food companies can skip the lengthy food additive petition process with the FDA and declare ingredients to be GRAS without undergoing FDA review. It worries that this loophole will allow unsafe ingredients into foods. In 2017, the EWG and several other public health groups filed a lawsuit against the FDA seeking to strike down the GRAS system. The case is ongoing.
Bloom, for one, is not concerned. “If I saw any reason to buy one type of food over another, I would do it for my own health, but I see no advantage to organics,” he says. “I wouldn’t change anything that I’m currently doing, because our food supply is safe.”
The bottom line: Your dollars are best spent on whole — not processed — foods. Don’t be tricked into thinking packaged food is good for you as long as it’s organic. There is nothing magical about organic packaged cookies, macaroni and cheese or ice cream that make them safer or more nutritious than conventional versions.
This story has been updated to reflect that the American Council on Science and Health has been criticized for accepting industry funding.
Registered dietitian Cara Rosenbloom is president of Words to Eat By, a nutrition communications company specializing in writing, nutrition education and recipe development. She is the co-author of “Nourish: Whole Food Recipes Featuring Seeds, Nuts and Beans.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/when-chemicals-are-used-to-scare-you-about-food/2019/05/06/81a5cd20-6ced-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html?utm_term=.20aef72cb160

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Energy News

Bernhardt: Climate Change Is Real, but Drilling Won’t Stop (1)

May 8, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By David Schultz

Interior secretary tells Congress he believes man-made climate change is real
But he says he won’t stop fossil fuel development on public lands
The head of the Department of the Interior told Congress he believes climate change is happening and that human activity is a cause, but said he won’t stop fossil fuel development on lands he oversees.
David Bernhardt, the Trump administration’s second Interior secretary, told a House Appropriations subcommittee that he “recognizes that the climate is changing” and that “I recognize that man is a contributing factor.”
However, the onus is on Congress, not the executive branch, to address climate change, Bernhardt said at a May 7 hearing, his first testimony to Congress since being confirmed to his current position earlier this year.
In keeping with this stance, he declined a request from the subcommittee’s chair, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), to pause all oil and gas development in response to climate change.
“Congress has the ability to decide what we do on federal lands,” Bernhardt said. “If you have a view on what you want to happen, we’ll carry it out.”
Democrat Has Differing View
But McCollum saw it differently, calling Bernhardt “the steward of our natural resources. We’re relying on you to combat these issues—and yes, that does mean climate change.”
But Bernhardt said no language in any of the laws signed by this or any other president requires the Interior secretary to address this issue.
“There are over 600 instances in law that says ‘The Secretary of the Department of the Interior shall’ do something,” Bernhardt told lawmakers at the hearing. “There is no ‘I shall manage the land to stop climate change’ or something similar.
“You guys come up with the ‘shalls,’” he added.
That is one area where Bernhardt and the subcommittee’s Democrats agreed.
“I’d be interested to find out where you think the legal challenges are that are stopping you,” Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said, “because we’re Congress we make the laws.”
Ethics Issues
Bernhardt is the target of heavy scrutiny from many Democrats less than two months after being confirmed to his Department’s top spot.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee sent his department a letter May 7 accusing it of obstructing a congressional investigation into several ethical issues involving Bernhardt, including whether entries were removed from his public calendar.
Bernhardt said he was “confident” an ongoing federal probe will exonerate him of ethical misconduct allegations. He said he’s provided Congress with thousands of pages of documents.
He also said that, if there are delays in providing Interior staffers to speak with the Oversight and Reform Committee, it’s because these staffers are are career employees who are unaccustomed to speaking to investigators.
However, Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), who serves on both the Oversight and Appropriations committees, raised the possibility that legal actions could be taken to compel these Interior employees to testify.
“Last time I checked, you don’t determine how we get our information,” she told Bernhardt. “Every time we address this administration, you are creating a new criteria for responding to checks and balances. And I really feel we shouldn’t have to go to the court to get you to comply.”
—With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg News).
(Updated with more reporting throughout)
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bernhardt-says-climate-change-is-real-but-drilling-wont-stop

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Oregon Rejects CWA 401 Certification For Proposed LNG Facility

May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

Oregon environment officials are rejecting a key Clean Water Act (CWA) approval for a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal and related pipeline, accelerating their decision due to uncertainty over a deadline and before EPA limits states' authority under CWA section 401 as required by a recent order from President Donald Trump.
The May 6 decision regarding the planned Jordan Cove LNG facility underscores ongoing tensions between states and federal officials over CWA 401 water quality certifications, which industry and Republican lawmakers complain have been unfairly used to block natural gas and other energy projects.
CWA section 401 generally gives states authority to review federal projects to ensure they do not undercut attainment of water quality standards. As such, states may place conditions on federal permits before certifying them, or they may decline to certify them.
Trump in an April 10 executive order (EO) directed EPA to review its regulations and guidance on section 401 to ensure they are not “causing confusion and uncertainty, and they are [not] hindering the development of energy infrastructure.”
A key issue EPA is expected to address is a one-year statutory deadline for states to issue a 401 certification decision. States have said they should be able to determine when a project application is complete, thus starting the one-year clock. Trump administration officials, however, have said they should be able to decide when the clock starts.
This issue factored heavily into the recent decision by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). In a statement on its website, DEQ says that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers initially asked the department to finish its review by May 7, but then extended the deadline to Sept. 24 after the applicant re-submitted the application.
However, DEQ says “recent federal court and agency decisions have raised significant questions about whether this extension was valid. As a result, DEQ is making a decision by the date initially provided by the Corps -- May 7.”
The state says it is rejecting the water quality certification because there is “insufficient information to demonstrate compliance with water quality standards and because the available information shows that some standards are more likely than not to be violated.”
DEQ says Jordan Cove may re-apply for the certification and submit new information that might assuage the state's concerns.
According to The Oregonian, the project's Calgary-based owner, Pembina Pipeline Corp., announced last week that it was “delaying a final decision on the project for a year and slashing [its] forecast spending as [it] waited for federal and state permits.”
Even as EPA starts to implement Trump's new EO, officials from a variety of states are continuing to raise concerns over what they say is the agency's failure to consult with them, despite its pledge to “immediately engage with our state and tribal partners.”
“We're very concerned about how that executive order is going to be implemented,” said Maryland Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles, a Republican who led EPA's water office during the Bush administration, during a May 2 keynote address at an American Law Institute Continuing Legal Education (ALI-CLE) conference in Washington, D.C.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/oregon-rejects-cwa-401-certification-proposed-lng-facility

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Natural Gas Is A Destination Fuel, Not A Bridge — Study

May 8, 2019 | E&E Energywire

By Jenny Mandel

Natural gas will be critical to meeting national climate goals, an industry group argues in a new study that points to the fuel's growing role in balancing renewable power along with gas demand for exports and manufacturing.
The study aims to move away from a debate over whether natural gas should serve as a lower-carbon "bridge" from coal to help the country on its way to an all-renewable future. It argues gas will continue to be in high demand throughout and beyond this period of energy transition.
"The attributes of natural gas and our robust natural gas infrastructure mean that natural gas will remain an essential source of energy within a greener U.S. energy mix," said Deepa Poduval, an oil and gas consultant with Black & Veatch who worked on the report for a foundation associated with the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA).
The study points to data on wind and solar variability at current levels of use, and extrapolates to future scenarios in which many states rely on renewables for half their power. In those cases, having flexible access to natural gas becomes more important because the higher renewables penetration magnifies their variability to yield bigger swings in daily output, the report says.
The study predicts only modest advances in the kinds of large-scale battery storage that could buffer power grids against seasonal and long-duration intermittency — technology that has captured the attention of researchers, but is not now widely available. Instead, natural gas and its interconnected network of pipelines are tapped to provide rapid grid balancing.
Natural gas accounted for 35% of U.S. electric power last year, well above the 27% from coal and 19% from nuclear energy. Wind, solar, hydropower and other renewables accounted for about 17% of electricity last year.
The study comes as the industry watches Democratic presidential candidates compete to distinguish themselves on their climate credentials and capture the imagination of an increasingly vocal anti-fossil-fuel movement. In a press briefing, INGAA President Don Santa called the Green New Deal "very aspirational" and said the natural gas industry needs to educate people about the technical realities that underlie reliable power generation.
Beyond use in the power sector, the industry study projected that natural gas demand from manufacturing and for export via pipelines and liquefied natural gas tankers will continue to grow over the next 20 years. But domestic production will easily keep up, the authors found. "This is a market that is more demand-constrained than supply-constrained," Poduval said.
The report contrasts with a recent study by the Boston Consulting Group that said demand growth — particularly for power generation and LNG exports — could be weaker than some forecasts suggest. BCG found that climate concerns with natural gas could be a bigger problem for the fuel than many in the industry acknowledge, and that trends like electrification and rapid battery technology improvements could take the industry by surprise (Energywire, April 15).
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/05/08/stories/1060292999

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Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) Inslee Signs Bill Phasing Out Potent Greenhouse Gases (1)

May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Paul Shukovsky

Washington state enacts sweeping package of climate bills
State to eliminate coal-fired electricity by 2025
Members of a class of refrigerants that are powerful greenhouse gases will be phased out in Washington state beginning in 2020, under a bill Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed 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 signed May 7 intended to reduce Washington’s contribution to greenhouse gases. Inslee also signed 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 state legislature before this year hasn’t done anything significant to implement its own goals,” Reed Schuler, Inslee senior policy advisor for climate and sustainability, told Bloomberg Environment May 7. “In this one year, this package of bills closes approximately 75 percent of the 2035 goal.”
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.
“HFCs are nearly 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the state, and they were projected to nearly double by 2030 without action,” Schuler said. The phaseout of particularly potent members of the class could cut that number by a third or more, he said.
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 allows 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 requires Washington state utilities to eliminate coal-fired electricity by 2025 and sell retail power solely from non-emitting and renewable sources by 2045.
It uses pricing signals to nudge the grid away from fossil fuels by creating tradable renewable energy credits that can be bought and sold; imposes administrative penalties for noncompliance; and establishes a rate-setting mechanism that gives incentives to reduce carbon and recognizes the negative impacts of fossil fuels.
The commercial buildings bill requires the state commerce department to create an energy performance standard for certain commercial buildings by Nov. 1, 2020. It also imposes building code rules requiring electric vehicle charging capability at all new buildings that provide on-site parking.
The electric and alternative-fuel vehicle bill reinstates a sales tax exemption for alternative fuel passenger vehicles that phases out over six years. And it provides incentives to the private sector, such as business and occupation tax credits, to spur alternative fuel vehicle infrastructure for commercial vehicles. It also creates a capital grant program to aid transit authorities in electrifying their fleets, using alternative fuels, and adding electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The appliance bill establishes new minimum efficiency standards for a range of products. If manufactured after Dec. 31, 2020, appliances that fail to meet the standard will 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.
(Updates with bill signing and comment from Inslee policy adviser starting in the sixth paragraph. )
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/inslee-to-sign-bill-phasing-out-potent-greenhouse-gases

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(ACC Mentioned) EPA’s Wheeler Discusses Marine Litter and Waste at G7 Meeting

May 8, 2019 | WorkBoat

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler hosted U.S. stakeholders at the G7 Environmental Ministers meeting in Metz, France, Sunday to discuss ways the government, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector can work to curb marine litter and waste.
He was joined by representatives from the Ocean Conservancy, LyondellBasell, and the American Chemistry Council. Each minister at the G7 was invited to host a private sector and non-governmental organization leader to address reducing waste.
Every year, an estimated 11 billion to 28 billion lbs. of waste ends up in the ocean, harming marine life and coastal economies. Nearly 60% of that waste comes from six Asian nations. Approximately 80% of ocean trash comes from land based sources, including plastics.
“Governments, the private sector, and society all agree on the need to solve the ocean plastic crisis and to employ a full range of solutions. Solely banning plastics will not make a significant impact in cleaning up our oceans,” said Wheeler. “To be most effective, nations around the world must address the problem before it gets to our oceans, which means improving waste management and recycling. This past year, EPA held their first ever Recycling Summit, bringing together leaders from all levels of the recycling chain to discuss ways to strengthen the recycling industry and markets. It is our hope that we can build on recycling solutions that can be shared with our international partners.”
Wheeler will stress the issue of curbing marine litter and plastic with his G7 counterparts this week.
“Proper plastics disposals are a very complex challenge and finding an effective solution requires close cooperation and coordination between the private sector and governments,” said Jim Seward, LyondellBasell vice president of sustainability. “If we can recover plastics effectively and recognize they are a valuable resource and not simply trash, then they can be reused and recycled. As an industry we are taking action through a variety of new, innovative and pragmatic approaches including traditional and chemical recycling.”
During a session with G7 ministers on Innovative Solutions to Fight Plastic Waste, Wheeler highlighted the EPA’s Trash Free Waters program where the agency works directly with states, municipalities, and businesses to reduce litter, prevent trash from entering waterways, and capturing trash that has already entered waterways. Additionally, he discussed the pilot projects based off this program that the U.S. has launched in Jamaica, Peru, and Panama to combat marine litter.
U.S. stakeholders from Ocean Conservancy and LyondellBasell and representatives from other G7 members also presented on solutions the international community can look to in efforts to curb marine waste.
https://www.workboat.com/news/bluewater/epas-wheeler-discusses-marine-litter-and-waste-at-g7-meeting/

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States Fault EPA’s Proposed FY20 Cuts To Clean Air Act Grant Programs

May 8, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Dave Reynolds

State and local air regulators are faulting EPA’s proposed fiscal year 2020 budget cuts to key Clean Air Act grant programs on which they rely, arguing in comments on the agency’s draft air office funding guidance that further reducing grant funding to states will hinder already strained programs and risk harming public health.
The National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA), and the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) are among the groups warning that President Donald Trump’s FY20 budget plan would increase state costs and limit flexibility by slashing funds that states need.
The comments, obtained by Inside EPA, were submitted to the agency ahead of a May 3 deadline for weighing in on its draft National Program Guidances (NPGs). The guides detail how specific agency divisions, such as the Office of Air & Radiation, plan to prioritize and allocate certain FY20 funding efforts.
NACAA, representing many state and local air agencies, in May 2 comments on EPA’s NPG for OAR’s budget implementation says the administration’s FY20 request would slash grants for states’ Clean Air Act section 103 and 105 programs by 33 percent, from the FY19 level of $228.2 to $152 million.
Instead, the group notes that the FY19 level was equal to funding states received 15 years ago, in FY04, and seeks an increase of $82 million over the FY19 funding allotment to account for inflation. The increase would bring the FY20 funding for the two air law grant programs to $310 million.
“We believe it is critically important that our programs receive the funding necessary to continue our efforts to protect public health,” NACAA says. “Therefore, NACAA urges EPA and the Administration to do whatever it must to ensure that federal air grants to state and local air pollution control agencies in FY 2020 and 2021 are increased above current levels, as we are recommending.”
AAPCA and ECOS, in separate comments, join NACAA in opposing a Trump administration plan in the FY20 request to shift authorization for funding for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) monitoring from Clean Air Act section 103 program to section 105, which requires that states contribute a 40 percent match to receive federal funds.
Section 103 of the air law authorizes grants for research, investigation, training, and other activities, while section 106 authorizes grants that support air pollution planning and control programs, according to EPA’s website.
In May 3 comments on EPA’s OAR NPG, ECOS says shifting authorization for the PM 2.5 monitoring grants from section 103 to section 105 would increase costs and limit states’ flexibility for implementation. ECOS represents many state environmental agencies.
“ECOS opposes the shifting of PM2.5 state grant funding from the Clean Air Act (CAA) §103 program, which does not require a state funding match, to the CAA §105 program which requires a 40% state match or Maintenance of Effort (MOE),” the comments say. “States assume significant administrative implementation costs for many regulatory programs, and these costs are often not clearly or fully reflected in the funding levels outlined by Congressional or Executive budget materials,” ECOS adds. “As a result, states often struggle to meet this 40% or MOE match on top of existing program implementation costs.”
AAPCA, which represents several state and local air agencies separate from NACAA, says that “stable and adequate funding” is needed to implement Clean Air Act programs and raises concerns about EPA’s plan to shift funding authority for PM2.5 monitoring from section 103 to section 105.
“Grants to state and local agencies for monitoring fine particulate matter (PM2.5) have historically been funded under CAA Section 103, which has not required the same funding match as CAA Section 105,” AAPCA says. The group adds that shifting the funding authority “could adversely impact the budgets of some state and local agencies.”
STAG Grants
EPA sought comment through May 3 on seven draft NPGs for implementing the pending FY20 budget request. The agency says the NPGs for OAR, the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) and other program offices “are utilized by EPA and states, tribes, and territories to inform grant work planning.”
The states’ criticism of the FY20 budget request in comments on the NPGs highlights ongoing controversy sparked by the Trump administration’s plan to slash funding for state grants while also increasing state responsibility for environmental oversight through cooperative federalism, where states lead in implementing federally delegated laws.
In March, EPA issued a justification to Congress for its FY20 budget that would cut state and tribal assistance grants (STAG), nearly in half, from $1 billion in FY19 to $580 million, and state revolving funds that support water infrastructure projects from $2.8 billion down to $1.9 billion.
The request also details an aggressive plan for shifting significant environmental oversight to states either through delegated authority or slashing programs that complement states’ work.
The air regulators’ recent criticism echoes state water regulators’ recent calls to Senate appropriators to reject the requested FY20 cuts to grants that help state implement the Clean Water Act (CWA) and backs ECOS’ past opposition to proposed cuts to state programs generally.
The Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA) in an April 26 letter to Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Tom Udall (D-NM) said proposed cuts to CWA section 106 and section 319 funds would severely limit states’ ability to implement core water protection programs as required by the water law.
ACWA asks the Senate appropriators to not only restore section 106 funding but to seek an increase to account for inflation. The group says in 2015, categorical grants to states were about 29 percent lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than they were in 2004.
And in March 15 written testimony to the House Appropriations Committee’s interior panel that oversees EPA, ECOS leaders argued that STAG grants are necessary for states to continue to successfully implement federally delegated environmental laws and that the appropriators should continue to fund those grants at FY19 levels.
“STAG Categorical Grants fund a huge range of work by state environmental agencies. Much of that work is core implementation activity such as issuing environmental permits, inspecting facilities and enforcing the law, setting standards, and managing data,” ECOS President Becky Keogh, the director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality says written in testimony, cosigned by ECOS Vice President Jim Macy, Nebraska’s top environment regulator, and ECOS Past President Todd Parfitt, director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.
“STAG support is critical to the continued creativity and vitality of state-led environmental regulation,” they say. “States therefore thank Congress for preserving STAG Categorical Grants over the past three fiscal years, and ask that Congress further support the program in the FY20 budget."
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-fault-epa%E2%80%99s-proposed-fy20-cuts-clean-air-act-grant-programs

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EPA Rejects New York’s Petition to Reduce Upwind Air Pollution

May 7, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Amena H. Saiyid

EPA says New York unable to demonstrate ozone problem is due to upwind states
Agency won’t require controls at 350 sources of smog-forming pollution
New York won’t get any assistance from the EPA in meeting air quality standards for ozone anytime soon.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed rejecting a March 2018 petition (RIN 2060-AU04) from the state that sought the federal agency’s assistance in cracking down on ozone-forming pollution from hundreds of sources in nine upwind states. The agency’s move comes less than a month after the state sued the EPA for failing to act on its Clean Air Act petition.
New York identified some 350 power plants, factories, and oil and gas operations in upwind states that were major emitters of nitrogen oxide pollution, which is instrumental in reacting in sunlight to form ground-level ozone, a known lung irritant.
The upwind states cited by New York are Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.
In a May 7 post, the EPA said that “the the petition has not identified, and the EPA has not independently found, relevant air quality problems with respect to either the 2008 or the 2015 ozone” national air quality standards. The EPA will take comments for 60 days after the proposed decision is published in the Federal Register.
New York isn’t the only state that has petitioned for help in addressing upwind sources of air pollution, and been rejected. The EPA in 2018 rejected similar petitions from Maryland, Delaware, and Connecticut.
The states wanted the EPA to use the “good neighbor” provision of the Clean Air Act to require additional pollution controls at the upwind power plants. The agency argued that its latest round of air pollution modeling and monitoring shows all eastern U.S. areas will meet the ozone standards by 2023.
The EPA is facing a lawsuit from a dozen states led by New York and a coalition of environmental groups for failing to address smog-forming pollution.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/epa-rejects-new-yorks-petition-to-reduce-upwind-air-pollution

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NRDC Urges NAFTA Replacement To Cite Paris Climate Deal

May 7, 2019 | Inside EPA

Environmentalists are urging Congress to withhold approval of the Trump administration's proposed replacement to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) until the administration, Canada and Mexico agree to revise the deal to include a pledge to uphold the Paris climate agreement.
In addition, they are also faulting other environment-related provisions in the NAFTA replacement, which is to be known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), including a continuation of a dispute resolution process that allows corporations to challenge countries' environmental protections.
“Before Congress votes on this amended agreement, it should insist that the three nations include upholding the Paris climate accord as part of the pact,” the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) Amanda Maxwell says in a May 7 statement. “The revised pact recognizes other environmental treaties; there’s no reason it should ignore the greatest environmental challenge facing our planet.”
President Donald Trump has made a NAFTA overhaul a top priority, though he must rely on the Democratic-led House to advance the measure.
White House officials have been touting their efforts to work with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the issue. For example, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters May 3 that he recently asked Pelosi what she needs to support USMCA, and that she asked for stronger enforcement provisions.
A May 7 article in The Hill notes that Democrats have been pushing for tougher environmental and labor provisions, but that there are also “worries on the GOP side,” with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) warning that the deal would be “dead” if Trump does not lift a suite of tariffs on imported steel and other products he has imposed on other countries.
The administration agreed with Canada and Mexico on USMCA in November, beginning a six-month period for Congress to review the deal.
NRDC's Maxwell, however, writes in a May 6 blog post that any “modern” trade agreement that ignores climate change is a “non-starter.”
“The USMCA should be reworked to include a mandatory 'climate impact test,' requiring governments to weigh and report the potential climate impacts of policy proposals. It could also have binding climate standards to hold trading partners accountable to their commitments to emissions reduction either through an independent panel or border carbon adjustments,” she writes.
Additionally, she urges the deal to “completely” scrap the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism that allows firms to challenge environmental and public health rules that could harm their business.
While USMCA scraps ISDS between the U.S. and Canada after three years, it retains the tool in Mexico for five of the “most polluting sectors,” including energy, transportation and infrastructure.
Maxwell also says the USMCA “backslides on environmental protections” by failing to include seven Multilateral Environmental Agreements that have been part of several major U.S. trade deals.
NRDC's ask would require negotiations to re-start on USMCA, and it is far from clear if the Trump administration is open to such a step.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/nrdc-urges-nafta-replacement-cite-paris-climate-deal

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Enviros Sue EPA Over Ozone Compliance In 8 States

May 7, 2019 | E&E News PM

By Sean Reilly

Two environmental groups sued EPA today to force decisions on the compliance status of Dallas-Fort Worth and almost a dozen other areas currently in violation of the agency's 2008 ground-level ozone standard.
The federal lawsuit, filed by the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity, alleges that EPA was legally bound to make those decisions by this past January. It asks a judge to order the agency to follow up by a firm date.
"We are going to court because it's well past time for the EPA to follow the law and do its job," Earthjustice attorney Seth Johnson said in a news release noting that the filing falls on World Asthma Day. EPA press aides did not reply to an emailed request for comment.
All of the areas named in the suit are listed in "moderate" nonattainment for the standard of 75 parts per billion; besides Dallas-Fort Worth, they include the metropolitan areas for New York City, Baltimore and Houston. Some are "the most polluted areas of the country, where millions of people live and work," the suit says.
Under an EPA draft rule published last November, Baltimore would be deemed in compliance with the 75 ppb limit. Many of the other areas, however, would be downgraded to "serious" nonattainment, a step that could lead to stricter measures to curb ozone-forming emissions.
While EPA had planned to issue the final rule in January, it has yet to do so four months later. A fresh obstacle emerged this week when the agency disclosed that it had "erroneously omitted" documents stemming from Maryland's request to exclude some air quality monitoring data under an "exceptional events" waiver (Greenwire, May 6). As a result, EPA today reopened the public comment period for the Baltimore portion of the proposal, with a new deadline of May 22.
What prompted that decision was unclear. At the Maryland Department of the Environment, spokesman Jay Apperson said in an email that the state did not request the new public comment period. He did not reply to follow-up queries asking whether Maryland had brought the missing information to EPA's attention.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is a lung irritant spawned by the reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in sunlight. In 2015, EPA further tightened the standard to 70 ppb but is still relatively early in the process of bringing the country into full compliance with that benchmark.
The suit is filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Already pending in a separate court is a suit filed in March by WildEarth Guardians seeking to compel EPA to decide the status of the Denver Metro/North Front Range area in Colorado (Greenwire, March 27).
That area also falls under the moderate nonattainment umbrella. In its November proposal, EPA gave tentative approval to a request made last year by then-Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) to give the state another year to meet the 75 ppb standard. Earlier this year, however, current Gov. Jared Polis (D) dropped the extension request, meaning that Denver is also facing a probable downgrade to serious nonattainment. A business group called Defend Colorado is fighting Polis' move.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/05/07/stories/1060292013

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Trump Interior Chief Says Climate Change Response Falls on Congress

May 7, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Rebecca Beitsch

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt defended his position on climate change and record on ethics while speaking before lawmakers Tuesday to discuss his agency's proposed budget.
In his first hearing since being sworn in as secretary, the Trump administration official frequently put the onus on lawmakers for responding to global warming. He said that while he believes in climate change, Congress has not directed him to respond to it.
“Isn’t this your job?” Bernhardt asked Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) when pushed to share his views on climate change during a subcommittee hearing for the House Appropriations Committee. “You’re a political leader right now that we are counting on.”
Bernhardt told the committee that there are more than 600 instances in current laws where the secretary is directed that he or she “shall” do something.
“You know what there’s not – is a ‘shall’ for ‘I shall manage the land to stop climate change’ or something similar to that,” he said.
Bernhardt also discussed development of fossil fuels on public lands, saying he would not stop oil and gas development – including offshore drilling – without direction from Congress.
The Trump Cabinet official also clarified that his department will finish its five-year drilling plan, despite reports that it was indefinitely sidelined.
Bernhardt repeatedly emphasized that concerns from states would be paramount in making a determination at the federal level.
“I’m not aware of a single lease that was ever developed over the opposition of a state,” he said.
But Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) questioned why Interior was continuing to process permits for seismic exploration of underwater oil reserves up and down the Atlantic Coast, particularly given the risks the process poses to marine life.
“We shouldn’t be afraid of information. If we can do it properly and it can be done responsibly, the data itself is not something we should be afraid of,” he said.
Some of the hearings most heated exchanges came in response to questions over Bernhardt’s ethics records.
Many of the ethics investigations from Bernhardt’s predecessor, Ryan Zinke, are still underway, and Bernhardt himself is being investigated along with six other Interior staffers.
Democrats have requested interviews with a number of Interior officials, and Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) said Bernhardt has refused to schedule those interviews, sending documents instead.
“We as Congress asked them to come and last I check you don’t determine how we get our information,” Lawrence said.
Democrats have threatened to block the salaries of Interior officials and others who refuse to testify before Congress.
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) said even by Chicago standards, “it’s pretty impressive four days into your tenure the inspector general opens an investigation into your ‘wide assortment of questionable conduct on your part.’”
Quigley repeatedly accused Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist who was confirmed to the administration last month, of acting in the interests of his former lobbying clients. Bernhardt responded that he was working for American interests.
Legislators have long questioned Bernhardt's industry ties given his background as a lobbyist, and Democrats have pushed for more details about how top staff keeps track of Bernhardt's calendar and meetings with industry representatives.
Bernhardt appeared Tuesday to discuss the Trump administration's budget for the Department of the Interior, which calls for a 14 percent cut to the agency – roughly $2 billion less than last year.
Congress has consistently rejected the budget cuts proposed by President Trump's White House and offered increases to the Department of Interior and other agencies.
Subcommittee chair Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) said the Democratic-led House panel would likely reject what she called the “unrealistic funding levels in the Trump budget.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/442605-interior-secretary-says-climate-change-response-falls-on-congress

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