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AM ACC Clips Report - May 14, 2019

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Fact Checking Trump's Buy America Strategy of Avoiding Tariffs
May 13, 2019 | CNN
By Holmes Lybrand

In attempting to justify his decision to raise tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports into the US, President Donald Trump has suggested that paying the tariffs is a voluntary decision by US consumers and businesses, and that the best way to avoid them is not to buy Chinese-made products. In other words, just buy American, Trump argues.
(ACC Mentioned) Who Gets Hurt by China's New Tariffs on American Goods? Farmers and Chemical Makers
May 13, 2019 | USA Today
By Paul Davidson

China’s announcement Monday that it will raise tariffs on $60 billion of American goods compounds the pain in what is fast becoming all-out trade war between the two countries as U.S. farmers, chemical makers and others brace for a further hit to revenue.
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Fret over Renewed US-China Trade War
May 13, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alex Tullo

The US and China are escalating their trade war, and the US chemical industry is caught in the crossfire.
(ACC Mentioned) Fear Spreads Across Texas, as U.S.-China Trade War Escalates
May 13, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne and Marissa Luck

Another round of tariffs by the Chinese government Monday sparked fears from Wall Street to the Texas farmland that an escalating trade fight between the United States and China threatened to damage the global economy.
(ACC Mentioned) Nearly Every Country Agrees to Curb Plastic Pollution Except U.S.
May 13, 2019 | U.S. News & World Report
By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder

More than 180 countries have pledged to meet control measures to curb plastic pollution, but the U.S. wasn't one of them, according to United Nations environment officials.

TSCA News

DC Circ. Not Sure Info Can Be Property In FCA Suit
May 13, 2019 | Law 360
By Nadia Dreid

A D.C. Circuit panel didn’t seem ready Monday to buy into Kasowitz Benson’s argument that information could be considered property for the purposes of the law firm’s whistleblower lawsuit against four chemical companies.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemical-Laden Foams Banned from Fire Training in Arizona
May 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brenna Goth

Firefighting foam containing a harmful class of chemicals known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) will be largely banned from use in training sessions in Arizona starting next year.
Toxic Food Packaging at the Grocery Store?
May 13, 2019 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Mike Schade and Erika Schreder

There’s nothing like spending an evening on the couch with our families, binge-watching the Great British Baking Show and passing around a bowl of scrumptious popcorn. But that popcorn may be carrying a hidden hazard.
Rep. Kildee, Key Task Force Leader, Details Path For Advancing PFAS Bills
May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan

On the eve of a key legislative hearing, Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI), the Democratic co-chair of a bipartisan task force aimed at addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), is detailing the path he and other lawmakers plan to take to advance PFAS legislation in the House though their effort still likely faces a rocky path.
New Electrochemical Method Detects PFOS and PFOA
May 13, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Emma Hiolski

Bubbles and tiny electrodes may hold the key to faster, more cost-effective detection of perfluorinated surfactants that can contaminate drinking water. Researchers have developed an electrochemistry-based method to detect surfactants, specifically perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), with high sensitivity and specificity (Anal. Chem. 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b01060).
New Jersey Asbestos-In-Products Ban Becomes Law
May 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed into law a bill to prohibit the sale or distribution of products containing asbestos.
Lawmakers Target Sunscreen Ingredients to Save Coral
May 14, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Mark K. Matthews

Federal lawmakers have been thinking a lot about sunscreen lately — and not just because beach season is a few short weeks away.
Bayer Ordered by Jury to Pay $2 Billion Damages in Roundup Trial (2)
May 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Joel Rosenblatt

Bayer AG was ordered to pay more than $2 billion in damages to a California couple that claimed they got cancer as a result of using the company’s Roundup weedkiller for about 30 years.
Commission to Amend Plastic Food Contact Materials Regulation
May 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission is planning to amend the Regulation on plastic food contact materials to reflect the authorisation of new substance poly((R)-3 -hydroxybutyrate -co-(R)-3-hydroxyhexanoate).
UK Audit Committee Launches Consumer Survey on Hazardous Chemicals
May 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The UK's Environmental Audit Committee has launched a consumer survey to ascertain the level of public awareness and concern about the presence of harmful chemicals in everyday consumer products.

Energy News

Trade War Threatens to Stall Booming Wave of U.S. LNG Projects
May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christine Buurma and Naureen S. Malik

With President Donald Trump poised to visit a new liquefied natural gas terminal in Louisiana -- the kind of project his administration has heralded as an example of U.S. energy dominance -- the latest trade war developments threaten the viability of similar facilities.
China Hikes LNG Tariff to 25 Percent
May 13, 2019 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne

China announced Monday it will raise tariffs on U.S. LNG to 25 percent, part of a broad retaliation to President Donald Trump's announcement last week he was raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods.
Trump's LNG Push at Odds with Oil and Gas Industry
May 14, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Kelsey Brugger

President Trump plans to promote "energy infrastructure" at a liquefied natural gas exports terminal in Louisiana today, but his recent trade war with China and other actions have sparked sharp criticism from oil and gas interests.
Trump's Latest Visit to Louisiana Highlights Goals and Risks of LNG Exporting
May 13, 2019 | The Advocate
By Anthony Mcauley

President Donald Trump’s visit to Louisiana on Tuesday, and his stop at Sempra Energy’s $10 billion Cameron Parish natural gas-export facility, highlights a key policy goal for his administration: boosting U.S. energy exports to support the thousands of jobs these projects are expected to create.
Lawmakers Introduce Efficiency, Research Bills
May 14, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Philip Athey

Lawmakers introduced legislation last week to promote energy efficiency as a means to address climate change and save taxpayer dollars.
Texas Permian Oil, Gas Development Leading to Huge Growth Above Ground, Says TIPRO
May 13, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis

Oil and natural gas development has skyrocketed over the past five years in the Permian Basin of West Texas, with communities in one of the sparcest regions of the state also experiencing huge growth, according to the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO).

Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) NEJAC Warns of Equity Harms from EPA Chemical Safety, EtO Rollbacks
May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA

EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC) is urging EPA to halt proposed rollbacks of an Obama-era rule on limiting safety risks from industrial facilities and of the agency’s risk assessment of the solvent ethylene oxide (EtO), warning that the efforts could increase public health risks for equity communities.
Chemical Safety Board Needs to Consistently Follow Its Cyber Rules, Watchdog Says
May 13, 2019 | Nextgov
By Brandi Vincent

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, or CSB, needs to better define its policies and procedures around data, access and incident response to toughen its cybersecurity program, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General recommends.

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Outlook for Bill Hinges on Trump's Leadership
May 14, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Maxine Joselow

An infrastructure bill won't come to fruition this year if President Trump doesn't take the reins on funding, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer warned today.
North Dakota to Sue Washington over Crude-By-Rail Law
May 14, 2019 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee

Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has threatened to sue over a new state law in Washington aimed at restricting the amount of oil that moves into Washington by rail.

Environment News

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Join up to Preach Green New Deal, Take Jabs at Biden
May 13, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was in familiar territory Monday evening, speaking to a college auditorium of liberal-leaning students and young voters.
Progressives Going After Green New Deal Holdouts
May 14, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted "conservatives on both sides of the aisle" at a Sunrise Movement event last night, as the group rallied with other progressives in Washington, D.C., to conclude weeks of climate rallies across the country.
EPA Says States Cannot Sue Over Ozone Designations On Citizens’ Behalf
May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker

EPA is arguing that states lack standing for their litigation challenging the agency’s designations for which areas of the country are attaining federal ozone standards because they cannot contest the findings on behalf of their citizens, the latest attempt by EPA to fend off states’ lawsuits by arguing that they lack the necessary standing to sue.
CEI Launches New Data Quality Act Challenge To EPA Climate Risk Finding
May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey

The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is citing new White House guidelines on implementing the Information Quality Act (IQA) in a fresh attempt to thwart use of EPA's decade-old “endangerment finding” that supports regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Walmart Has Thousands of Suppliers. It's Slashing Their CO2
May 14, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By John Fialka

A corporate cause emerged from Hurricane Katrina.
EPA May Relax N.C. Implementation of Startup-Shutdown Rule
May 13, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Sean Reilly

Only weeks after seeking to give Texas a break on 2015 regulations targeting excess emissions from industrial plant startups and other factors, EPA is weighing action regarding North Carolina, according to a new court filing.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Fact Checking Trump's Buy America Strategy of Avoiding Tariffs

May 13, 2019 | CNN

By Holmes Lybrand

In attempting to justify his decision to raise tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports into the US, President Donald Trump has suggested that paying the tariffs is a voluntary decision by US consumers and businesses, and that the best way to avoid them is not to buy Chinese-made products. In other words, just buy American, Trump argues.
On Monday, Trump tweeted: "There is no reason for the U.S. Consumer to pay the Tariffs," and that they can be "completely avoided if you buy from a non-Tariffed Country, or you buy the product inside the USA (the best idea). That's Zero Tariffs."
Facts first: Most of the Chinese products subject to tariffs simply aren't made in the US, including apparel and electronic components. For those few items where there is an American made alternative, there is also the problem of scalability: US companies simply lack the capacity to create the number of products that come from China. In that regard, Trump's suggestion that there is "no reason for the U.S. Consumer to pay the Tariffs" is false.
"That's misguided," said Greg Daco, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, on Monday of Trump's notion that US companies can produce the same products at the same scale as China. "The type of imports that we bring in from China and the scale of the imports ... make substitution, at least immediate substitution, nearly impossible."
Part of the problem is that the US no longer has the manufacturing base it once did. According to Robert E. Scott, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, over the past two decades, the US has lost roughly a third of its manufacturing capacity, as more than 90,000 factories have closed and 5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost.
"Entire industries no longer exist in this country," said Scott. "So it's false to suggest we can just buy American instead of paying tariffs."
Daco pointed to apparel, semiconductors, and electronics including laptops and cellphones as prime examples of products whose production could not easily be shifted to the US.
"To replace those imports you would need to build factories," Daco said, noting that companies would also have to hire US workers who are paid at a much higher rate than their Chinese counterparts -- all of which would significantly increase production cost for US companies.
"It would take at least a couple of years (and) would not be profitable," said Daco.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration put a 25% tariff on 6,000 items imported from China, totaling $200 billion in value. On Monday afternoon, the Office of the US Trade Representative announced it was starting the process of extending the 25% tariff onto the remaining $300 billion of Chinese imports into the US.
"The thought that you can simply replace all your foreign sourcing of all these things, even assuming you could move factories overnight, is utterly ridiculous," Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council told CNN. Yerxa also noted that US employment is near full capacity, and so the US wouldn't have the labor-force necessary for the production of these goods, even if the infrastructure existed.
When it comes to clothing, textiles and other low-value added products, Yerxa said, "Those are jobs that always throughout history have migrated to relatively less-developed, more labor-intensive regions." He noted too that the US no longer has the infrastructure to produce many of those products.
David French, the senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, told CNN that the main reasons many of these items are produced in China is that "China has the capacity, logistics and labor force." Other countries, French noted, are not as well suited for many of these products as China is, due in large part for the deep-water ports and existing infrastructure China has built. "It will take a long time to replace the capacity China has," French said.
While some US companies are "working to bring their supply chains back the United States," French notes, "by and large, there are less costly places to produce." Many countries that the US could look to for these products are not as efficient as China, so the cost for these goods would still increase, according to French.
And while Trump's advice for avoiding tariffs seemed largely aimed at consumers, US companies are also stuck paying higher prices for imports.
Among the industries most exposed to the President's trade war with China is the US chemical sector. There, the impact is two-fold -- not only are chemical companies stuck paying tariffs on many specialty chemicals imported from China, since no American-made alternatives exist, they have also been hit by China's retaliatory tariffs, limiting their access to what has been a lucrative export market.
Many raw materials integral to the US chemical industry now fall under Trump's tariffs and are "unavailable outside of China," according to Jennifer Abril, president of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates.
According to an October report by the industry trade group American Chemistry Council, China's retaliatory tariffs on $11 billion in US chemicals and plastics exports "put nearly 55,000 American jobs and $18 billion in domestic activity at risk." Of the roughly 5,200 US products subjected to retaliatory tariffs from China last year, 987 are chemicals that in 2017 accounted for more than $8 billion in US exports to China.
With China set to increase tariffs on a range of US products to 25% starting in June, Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade at the American Chemistry Council, worries that US companies will no longer be able to offer their products at competitive prices into the Chinese market. "A 25% tariff could effectively shut US chemical companies out of the Chinese market," said Brzytwa.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/13/politics/trump-china-tariffs-buy-america-fact-check/index.html

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(ACC Mentioned) Who Gets Hurt by China's New Tariffs on American Goods? Farmers and Chemical Makers

May 13, 2019 | USA Today

By Paul Davidson

China’s announcement Monday that it will raise tariffs on $60 billion of American goods compounds the pain in what is fast becoming all-out trade war between the two countries as U.S. farmers, chemical makers and others brace for a further hit to revenue.
“Effectively, that market (China) is closed to U.S. exporters,” says Ed Brzytwa, director of trade for the American Chemistry Council.
China said it’s lifting the tariffs from a range of 5% to 10% to as much as 25%, with many goods set to be taxed at the upper limit. The higher duties are scheduled to take effect June 1. About 5,000 products are affected, including beef, fruit, vegetables, coats, refrigerators, furniture and electric saws.
Chinese officials announced the countertariffs after the Trump administration on Friday raised tariffs on $200 billion in U.S. imports from China from 10% to 25%.
The retaliatory tariffs China unveiled alone won’t significantly ding the U.S. economy, cutting economic growth by about a tenth of a percentage point next year if the trade fight isn’t resolved, according to Oxford Economics and Moody’s Analytics. But all existing U.S. and Chinese duties, including those announced Monday, will shave growth by three-tenths of a percentage point next year, says Oxford economist Greg Daco. Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi expects an even bigger impact of nearly half a percentage point.
The fallout for investors has been more prominent. The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled more than 600 points Monday. That’s partly because multinational corporations with significant exports could see less revenue and profits, Zandi says. The bigger toll is on business confidence and investment, he says.
“It raises the probability of a full-blown trade war, which will hammer earnings,” Zandi says.
So far, China has slapped tariffs on $100 billion in U.S. goods. As a result, U.S.exports to China fell 7% in 2018, according to the U.S.-China Business Council. And Chinese investment in the U.S. was down 60% last year, “in part because of added scrutiny applied to proposed deals and a souring political climate,” the group says.
U.S. farmers, who have been especially affected by China’s tariffs last year, are likely to suffer an additional blow.
John Heisdorffer, a soybean farmer in Keota, Iowa, has lost about $10,000 since China put a 25% levy on U.S. soybean shipments last year as prices fell from more than $10 a bushel to about $8. U.S. soybean exports to China effectively halted before rising modestly recently as part of Chinese concessions during negotiations. Heisdorffer says he has cut back on investments in new equipment.
After Monday’s news, soybean futures fell another seven cents. Although soybeans aren’t directly affected by the latest round of Chinese tariffs, various soy-related oils and extracts will be hit.
“I thought it was going to be resolved last week,” Heisdorffer says. “I don’t know what to think now. It continues to ratchet down the amount of cash we have to pay bills."
If the conflict drags on, he says, there won’t be anything left to give his son, who plans to take over the farm when Heisdorffer, 67, retires.
Heisdorffer, who is chairman of the American Soybean Association, also worries the number of soybean farmers who go bankrupt will increase substantially if the latest Chinese tariff isn’t removed. “People are going to be hanging by a thread,” he says.
Stefanie Smallhouse, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau, said the prospects of tariffs that could undercut exports to China come at an already bad time for the state’s agricultural industry.
Farmers and ranchers already have been paying higher prices for equipment, seed, fertilizer and other expenditures – partly due to tariffs that raised the price of steel and aluminum imported into the U.S. Plus, they face uncertainty in exporting to Mexico and Canada pending approval of a revamped North American trade agreement.
“We’re being squeezed on both sides,” said Smallhouse, who with her husband owns a livestock ranch near Tucson. “At this point, it’s a downhill slide.”
Longer term, the tariffs and heightened trade tensions mean farmers and ranchers face missed opportunities and the prospect of losing market share in China, which she described as an important export destination for Arizona agricultural products, especially dairy and meat.
China also represents the third-largest export market for U.S. chemical makers. Last year, U.S. chemical exports to China rose just 2.7% after notching double-digit gains in 2016 and 2017. The U.S. offers high-quality, inexpensive products, largely because of cheap prices for natural gas, a feedstock for many chemicals used to make plastics, oil-related goods, pharmaceuticals, construction and other products in China, Brzytwa of the ACC says.
With many chemical makers eyeing China as a prime market, about $200 billion in new factories are being planned in the U.S. But some could move to other countries if the newest tariff remains, Brzytwa says. Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers could shift their chemical purchases to domestic suppliers or other Asian countries.
BASF, a Germany-based chemical manufacturer with more than 100 facilities in North America, said it's "concerned about the U.S. announcements, and the response of several of its trading partners, to impose import tariffs on a wide range of products that could affect the chemical industry and its numerous customer industries."
The company said it's still assessing the potential effects of the latest round of increased Chinese tariffs on its American operations.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/13/tariffs-china-imports-trade-war-threatens-farmers-manufacturers/1191088001/

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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Fret over Renewed US-China Trade War

May 13, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Alex Tullo

The US and China are escalating their trade war, and the US chemical industry is caught in the crossfire.
Last September, the Trump administration imposed 10% tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Frustrated by negotiations over the past several months, the US Trade Representative ratcheted up those levies to 25% late last week.
Today, the Chinese government retaliated. In a statement, the Chinese taxation committee says the US measures “led to an escalation of Sino-US trade frictions, contrary to the consensus between China and the US on resolving differences through consultations.”
China is raising tariffs on $60 billion worth of US goods. Some 2,500 items will be tariffed at 25%. Among these items are chemicals such as methylene diphenyl diisocyanate and polyethylene terephthalate chip. The list also includes agricultural products such as peanut oil, sugar, and maple syrup and raw materials like wood, steel, and textile products.
In addition, China is tacking tariffs of 5%, 10%, and 20% on more than 2,600 goods. The tariffs are far reaching, covering everything from pasta to grand pianos. Chemicals on these lists include benzoic acid, titanium dioxide, polybutylene terephthalate, phenol, propylene oxide, and silicone.
Overall, according to the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA), a US trade group, the US has levied tariffs on 1,517 Chinese chemical products valued at $15.4 billion while China has placed duties on some 1,000 chemicals and plastics valued at $10.8 billion.
Wall Street isn’t happy with the renewed trade war. In the hours after the Chinese announcement, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 2.5%, about 650 points. Last year’s trade tensions also led to a stock market sell-off.
SOCMA is worried that the tariffs will disproportionately affect the specialty chemical makers it represents. “Specialty chemical supply chains are particularly dependent on China because in many cases China is the sole supplier of raw materials and building block chemicals,” the group said in a statement.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC), another chemical trade group, says last year’s tariffs helped triple the US trade deficit in chemicals with China from $1.4 billion to $4.0 billion.
“The risks of continuing to use tariffs as a negotiating tactic with China are simply too high, and any potential benefits are still unclear,” ACC president Cal Dooley said.
https://cen.acs.org/policy/trade/Chemical-makers-fret-over-renewed/97/web/2019/05

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(ACC Mentioned) Fear Spreads Across Texas, as U.S.-China Trade War Escalates

May 13, 2019 | Houston Chronicle

By James Osborne and Marissa Luck

Another round of tariffs by the Chinese government Monday sparked fears from Wall Street to the Texas farmland that an escalating trade fight between the United States and China threatened to damage the global economy.
Following President Donald Trump’s announcement last week he was raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, China said it was raising tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods. The prospect of a prolonged trade war between the world’s two largest economies sent global financial markets reeling.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were both down more than 2 percent by Monday’s close, with Texas companies including Cheniere Energy, Schlumberger and Westlake Chemical recording deeper drops.
As China’s economy opened up over the past few decades, its importance in the Texas economy grew. Twenty years ago there were just $1.1 billion worth of goods traded between the state’s energy capital of Houston and China; that number has swelled to more than $20 billion today, according to the Greater Houston Partnership. China is now Houston’s second-biggest foreign trading partner behind Mexico, the partnership reports.
“It’s a damper on any sort of negotiations underway or on any plans of expansion that involve selling into the Chinese market,” said Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership, which promotes economic development.
U.S. companies were still trying to figure out Monday the 5,000 U.S. products China plans to target. But a Chinese official said Monday they would raise tariffs on U.S. liquefied natural gas to 25 percent — from an existing 10 percent — targeting one of Texas’ fastest growing industries.
Last year, China was the fourth-largest importer of U.S. LNG, after Japan, South Korea and Mexico, according to the Department of Energy. And the tariffs would likely slow the development of at least some projects in development along the Gulf Coast, said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Liquefied Natural Gas.
“The reality is China is going to be the largest consumer of natural gas in the world very soon,” he said. “The U.S. is the largest natural gas producer in the world, so the two sides deadlocked in a trade dispute — it’s not a great piece of news. This further impedes the progress and slows things down.”
Other industries were left guessing which of their products were impacted, but most predicted more pain was coming.
Farmers on edge
In Texas, tech companies and auto manufactures, which rely on a two-way supply chain with Chinese manufacturers for parts, were likely to be among the hardest hit, said Pia Orrenius, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
A spokesman for American Chemistry Council, a trade group which represents several petrochemical companies in the Houston area, said it is still evaluating which chemicals will be hit by the new round of Chinese counter-tariffs but, “at first glance, it appears that chemicals are a significant target.”
Texas farmers were on edge. Already operating under significant tariffs on grain and other products in China — their largest export market, they watched prices for farm equipment rise under U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, said Gene Hall, spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau.
“We’re still waiting to see the list but tariffs are never good news,” he said. “The tariffs are pinching, hurting agriculture, and we need to wrap this up.”
Trump downplayed the impact on the U.S. economy on Monday, tweeting that he expected many industries would leave China for Vietnam and other Asian nations to avoid the U.S. tariffs.
“There will be nobody left in China to do business with. Very bad for China, very good for USA! But China has taken so advantage of the U.S. for so many years, that they are way ahead (Our Presidents did not do the job). Therefore, China should not retaliate-will only get worse!” Trump wrote.
For now, any hopes for a quick resolution to the trade fight are unlikely, experts say.
The latest round of talks reportedly broke down over the Trump administration’s insistence that China stop subsidizing its domestic industries, a tactic that allows them to undercut foreign competitors and drive them out of global markets.
The Chinese president Xi Jinping has so far shown little indication he plans to shift to a free-market economy, said William Reinsch, a former undersecretary of commerce during the Clinton administration and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“What we’re asking them to do is fundamentally alter the nature of their economy and reduce the (Communist) Party’s control,” he said. “Letting credit be allocated by the markets reduces the party’s control over the market and in the president’s mind reduces the party’s control over society.”
China’s ability to hit back against the United States is fairly limited, experts say. U.S. exports to China totaled $120.3 billion last year, compared to $539.5 billion in Chinese exports to the United States, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
‘Net negative’
That lopsided relationship is greater in Texas. Last year, only 5 percent of Texas’s $315 billion in exports went to China, said Orrenius, the Fed economist.
“It’s a net negative for Texas and our economic growth. But although Texas is the top exporter in the United States, we’re less exposed to China than other regions,” she said.
The escalating trade war already is taking its toll.
Even before Monday’s announcement, China already had imposed tariffs on $10.8 billion worth of chemicals, including two types of polyethylene that are fueling the petrochemical boom on the Gulf Coast. That has depressed pricing for chemicals in both China and other countries, said Nick Vafiadis, an analyst at IHS Market.
“We were hoping for quick resolution and that hasn’t happened,” he said. “Will this affect some those projects going forward? Well it possibly could, but in terms of any action being taken in the last few days it’s way too early to tell.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Fear-spreads-across-Texas-as-U-S-China-trade-13842358.php

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(ACC Mentioned) Nearly Every Country Agrees to Curb Plastic Pollution Except U.S.

May 13, 2019 | U.S. News & World Report

By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder

More than 180 countries have pledged to meet control measures to curb plastic pollution, but the U.S. wasn't one of them, according to United Nations environment officials.
The countries on Friday wrapped up the fourteenth conference for the Basel Convention in Geneva, Switzerland. The convention is "the most comprehensive international environmental agreement on hazardous and other wastes and is almost universal, with 187 Parties," according to the U.N. Environmental Program. The U.N. has 193 member countries.
"I'm proud that this week in Geneva, Parties to the Basel Convention have reached agreement on a legally-binding, globally-reaching mechanism for managing plastic waste," said Rolph Payet of the U.N. program.
The countries agreed to monitor where plastic goes when it leaves their borders. Under the agreement, nations will have to gain government permission to send most of their plastic waste to other countries.
The move was welcomed by Marco Lambertini, the director general of World Wide Fund for Nature.
"Wealthy countries have abdicated responsibility for enormous quantities of plastic waste by using the developing world as a dumping ground," Lambertini said.
"Today's decision is a highly welcome step towards redressing this imbalance and restoring a measure of accountability to the global plastic waste management system," Lambertini continued. "However, it only goes part of the way. What we – and the planet – need is a comprehensive treaty to tackle the global plastic crisis."
The American Chemistry Council, a trade association that represents the plastics industry, said the issue deserves a closer look.
"While this week's amendments to the Basel Convention are intended [to] reduce exports of mixed waste to less developed economies, this is a complex area that deserves more nuanced consideration than it has received to date," ACC said in a statement.
The additional requirements could make it more difficult for lower-income countries to send their plastic waste to countries that have updated technology to manage it responsibly, it added.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler has repeatedly noted the threat plastic litter poses to oceans. Roughly 100 million tons of plastic can be found in the ocean, and experts estimate that by 2050, plastic in the ocean will outweigh fish.
"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," Wheeler said earlier this month at the G-7 environmental ministers meeting in France.
Despite the U.S.'s lack of participation, the rules will still apply when the U.S. tries to move plastic waste to any of the 187 participating countries once the rules go into effect in a year.
Asian countries have started cracking down on how much plastic waste they take in from countries like the U.S. China recently stopped accepting recycling from the U.S., which has struggled to adapt to the new plastic burden.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-05-13/nearly-every-country-agrees-to-curb-plastic-pollution-except-us

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TSCA News

DC Circ. Not Sure Info Can Be Property In FCA Suit

May 13, 2019 | Law 360

By Nadia Dreid

A D.C. Circuit panel didn’t seem ready Monday to buy into Kasowitz Benson’s argument that information could be considered property for the purposes of the law firm’s whistleblower lawsuit against four chemical companies.
The firm was pushing to revive its False Claims Act suit claiming that BASF Corp., Covestro LLC, Dow Chemical Co. and Huntsman International LLC held on to important substantial risk information about a chemical they were using, despite the Toxic Substances Control Act requiring them to hand that information over to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The FCA makes it illegal for any party to shirk its obligation to transfer “money or property to the government,” and Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP argues that’s exactly what the chemical companies were doing when they didn’t cough up the risk information that the TSCA requires.
But U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan seemed to have a hard time accepting the firm’s argument that the substantial risk information, or SRI, is actually property and therefore bound by that language in the False Claims Act.
“I'm not sure that the information becomes property that the government can then do with what it wants with in the way that you'd normally understand,” Judge Srinivasan said.
With a more traditional form of property like real estate, after being handed over to the government, it would be able to build on the land, sell it, or do any other matter of things an entity can do with its own property, Judge Srinivasan said.
“But that just doesn't seem like that's what's going on with the substantial risk information," he said.
After Kasowitz Benson attorney Andrew Davenport doubled down on the firm's argument that the risk information was property, U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard asked whether he had any other theories.
“So we have to agree with you on that?” Judge Pillard asked. “If we think that the government is not being deprived of a property interest in the information, then that's fatal to your theory.”
Counsel for the chemical companies argued that Kasowitz Benson’s attempt to turn regulatory violations into False Claim Act claims subject to treble damages would “wipe out the administrative discretion that has always existed” for the EPA to assess penalties.
Judge Pillard wondered whether Kasowitz Benson getting its way would truly have the “grave consequences” the chemical companies were arguing, considering the government’s ability to take over a False Claims Act suit at any time.
But Latham & Watkins attorney Gregory G. Garre said it would be an “extraordinary burden” for the federal government to have to take over every FCA case.
Kasowitz Benson uncovered the information forming the basis of its suit during discovery in personal injury cases, and brought suit against BASF, Covestro, Dow and Huntsman in May 2016. The firm accused them of cheating the government out of billions of dollars by hiding the dangers of isocyanate, which is used to make polyurethane-based materials found in products from mattresses to paints.
The government declined to take over the case and it was unsealed in August 2016, but a D.C. court tossed the case a year later when it found that potential penalties could not be enforced under the FCA.
Kasowitz Benson is represented by its own Daniel R. Benson, Hector Torres and Andrew A. Davenport.
Dow is represented by Christopher Landau of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Alice S. Fisher, Anne W. Robinson and Steven M. Bauer of Latham & Watkins LLP.
BASF is represented by Seth A. Rosenthal of Venable LLP.
Covestro is represented by William F. Goodman III and Fred M. Haston III of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.
Huntsman is represented by Raymond A. Cardozo, Brian A. Sutherland and Lawrence S. Sher of Reed Smith LLP.
The case is U.S. ex rel. Kasowitz Benson v. BASF Corp. et al., case number 18-7123, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
https://www.law360.com/appellate/articles/1159273/dc-circ-not-sure-info-can-be-property-in-fca-suit

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Chemical-Laden Foams Banned from Fire Training in Arizona

May 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Brenna Goth

Firefighting foam containing a harmful class of chemicals known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) will be largely banned from use in training sessions in Arizona starting next year.
The state follows at least 19 looking at legislation more generally related to PFAS regulation, according to the environmental health network Safer States. A Georgia law signed this month also bans the firefighting foam for training in some cases.
The Arizona law, signed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey on May 13, aims to limit exposure to the chemicals that have drawn concerns from regulators across the country for contaminating drinking water.
Some PFAS compounds may cause adverse health effects, including testicular and kidney cancer, liver damage, and changes in cholesterol, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Phase-In
Arizona will outlaw state and local agencies from training with firefighting foam with intentionally added PFAS starting in 2020. The law allows its use in some cases, including if mandated by federal regulation or if a testing facility has measures to treat and contain it.
Firefighting foam has come under particular scrutiny in recent months. Groundwater contaminated by foam that the U.S. Air Force has used in training has sparked controversy near numerous bases.
Legislators passed the measure without opposition. The law doesn’t affect the sale or manufacturing of the foam.
Arizona firefighting groups as well as the American Chemistry Council, which represents manufacturers that produce the foam, supported the state’s legislation.
It’s a “common-sense policy” to limit use of the foams to actual fires, said Becky Hill, who represented the American Chemistry Council at a legislative hearing.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/chemical-laden-foams-banned-from-fire-training-in-arizona

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Toxic Food Packaging at the Grocery Store?

May 13, 2019 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

By Mike Schade and Erika Schreder

There’s nothing like spending an evening on the couch with our families, binge-watching the Great British Baking Show and passing around a bowl of scrumptious popcorn. But that popcorn may be carrying a hidden hazard.
A new laboratory investigation commissioned by our groups has identified the likely presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in some store-brand products and food serviceware obtained at Albertsons and one of its subsidiaries, Safeway. Albertsons’s other subsidiaries that may carry these products include Vons, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Shaw’s/Star Market, Randalls and Tom Thumb. The tested products include dental floss, bakery cake plates, and the packaging for Albertsons’ store-brand organic and conventional microwave popcorn. Eight out of the ten tested samples from Albertsons and Safeway stores contained elevated levels of fluorine, indicating they were likely treated with PFAS.
Grocery chains like Albertsons and other retailers must “mind the store” to ensure that food contact materials and other products they sell don’t contain dangerous chemicals like PFAS.
Companies use PFAS chemicals in food packaging because they provide water and grease resistance. But these harmful chemicals can leach out of the packaging and get into food and our bodies, and after use, they can wind up in compost and the environment. PFAS have also been found in drinking water all around the U.S. Some PFAS remain in the human body for years and studies suggest exposure is associated with cancer, liver damage, and immune suppression.Mom, can you pass the PFAS?
The investigation identified the following items, purchased at Albertsons and Safeway grocery stores, which were chosen because they were likely treated with PFAS:The bags of store brand O Organics popcorn (Butter and Simply Salted flavors) and Signature Select popcorn (Extra Butter and Kettle Corn flavors);Store brand Signature Care Mint Waxed Comfort Floss;Decorative plates used under store bakery cakes; andA hot bar clamshell container.
The only item we recently sampled that did not test positive for likely PFAS treatment was butcher paper.
This testing expands on sampling conducted in 2018 to gauge the extent of PFAS use in paper food packaging sold at and used by five major U.S. grocery chains. Our Take Out Toxics study focused on deli packaging such as takeout containers; this additional sampling included additional types of packaging, such as for microwave popcorn, some of which have been found to be likely PFAS-treated in other studies.
Samples were collected at Albertsons and Safeway stores in Boise, ID and San Jose, CA in February and March of 2019 by our coalition partners Conservation Voters for Idaho and Clean Water Action California. We sent them to Dr. Graham Peaslee’s lab at the University of Notre Dame, which measured the items for total fluorine content, a useful screen for the likely presence of PFAS chemicals.Take Out Toxics
In Take out Toxics: PFAS Chemicals in Food Packaging, we found that nearly two-thirds (5 of 8) of the paper takeout containers tested, such as those used at self-serve salad and hot bars, contained elevated levels of fluorine, indicating they were likely treated with PFAS. Eleven percent (4 of 38) of bakery and deli papers tested were also likely treated with PFAS, including a bakery bag and sandwich wrapping paper. In that report, one out of 17 materials sampled from Albertsons tested positive for likely PFAS treatment. In the present study, we set out to investigate whether other food packaging from Albertsons might contain PFAS.Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s act – what about Albertsons?
In response to the Take Out Toxics report, both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s pledged action on PFAS. In contrast, Albertsons has yet to make a public commitment on toxic PFAS. Nonetheless, Albertsons has made progress in other areas, such as significantly reducing the use of BPA in its private brand food packaging.
Just as the company worked to drive BPA out of its canned foods, Albertsons should ensure that food contact materials don’t contain highly persistent and toxic PFAS chemicals and ensure substitutes are safe. The company should also get out in front of city and state bans on PFAS that have been passed in places like the state of Washington and San Francisco by banning PFAS in its food contact materials nationwide.
As the second-largest dedicated grocery chain in America, with more than 2,200 stores and $60.5 billion in annual sales, Albertsons has the market power and a moral responsibility to ensure the food and products it sells don’t contain toxic chemicals like PFAS.
https://saferchemicals.org/2019/05/13/toxic-food-packaging-at-the-grocery-store/

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Rep. Kildee, Key Task Force Leader, Details Path For Advancing PFAS Bills

May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Suzanne Yohannan

On the eve of a key legislative hearing, Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI), the Democratic co-chair of a bipartisan task force aimed at addressing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), is detailing the path he and other lawmakers plan to take to advance PFAS legislation in the House though their effort still likely faces a rocky path.
In an exclusive interview with Inside EPA, Kildee said he is confident that if lawmakers can pull together a strong, technical basis for legislation, hold committee hearings to establish a clear public record of PFAS' environmental and health threats, and show how legislation would address that threat, that will be a move in the right direction.
“Holding committee hearings is establishing a clear public record of the threat, and how legislation would address that threat is a step in the right direction. And then hopefully we move quickly to marking up bills in committee and getting them to the floor," said Kildee, whose district includes Oscoda, MI -- home to the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base that is contaminated with PFAS.
His comments come as the House Energy & Commerce environment subcommittee is scheduled May 15 to hold its first legislative hearing to review a slate of bills addressing PFAS contamination.
Lawmakers in recent weeks have introduced a host of bipartisan measures attempting to force EPA to regulate PFAS -- an unregulated, emerging class of contaminants spreading in drinking water systems -- and to require funding boosts on the issue and compel Defense Department (DOD) cleanups, among other related actions.
The bills include separate measures to require EPA to set a national drinking water regulation for total PFAS in two years, mandate toxic release reporting by manufacturers and producers of PFAS, require federal facility cleanups of the chemicals and bar incineration of PFAS waste.
The Energy & Commerce panel plans to examine these, as well as bills on requiring EPA to designate all PFAS as “hazardous substances” under the Superfund law, placing user fees on PFAS manufacturers to pay for water treatment of contaminated water, banning the introduction of any new PFAS into commerce, and requiring EPA to list PFAS as a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air act, according to a committee briefing memo.
While some bills have only one committee referral, others have been referred to as many as four committees, prompting one high-level Defense Department environment official recently to doubt the prospects for such legislation.
Maureen Sullivan, DOD's deputy assistant secretary for environment, told the Environmental Council of the Statesspring meeting April 9 that it was unclear how a House bill requiring EPA to list all PFAS as “hazardous substances” under the Superfund law will clear multiple panels to which it has been referred.
The legislation, H.R. 535, which would trigger PFAS cleanup liability for DOD and private parties, has been referred to both the House Energy & Commerce and Transportation & Infrastructure committees, which share jurisdiction over the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.
It is “never a good sign” when a bill is referred to multiple committees, she said.
But the Michigan lawmaker downplayed such concerns, saying he expected to get a “good signal” from the May 15 hearing.
Kildee, who has personally lobbied Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) several times on the issue, added that the Democratic leader would provide critical support. “I've talked to the Speaker about this on a number of occasions, and I know she is supportive of us taking action,” he said.
Bipartisan Task Force
He also said that he and other lawmakers created the bipartisan task force in part to overcome disputes over committees' jurisdiction.
“This is really the reason that we formed the task force because we wanted to have a more comprehensive approach to the problem,” with work going beyond the typical committee jurisdiction, he said.
Kildee, along with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), co-chairs the Congressional PFAS Task Force, which was formed in January to push legislative, funding and other measures to pressure EPA and other agencies on the cleanup of PFAS. The task force now has more than 40 members.
Kildee effectively dismissed roadblocks that might arise from overlapping jurisdictions. He noted the task force's plan to attack PFAS issues in a multi-pronged approach, and said the group is used as a forum to discuss legislation, and then the bills move through the committee process.
He called it “very important” to “have a 30,000-foot level view of this problem and not get siloed based on particular committee jurisdiction.” He noted various committees with jurisdiction over PFAS matters, including the Natural Resources, Energy and Commerce, Armed Services, Veterans' Affairs and Appropriations committees.
While it is unclear whether bills will be packaged together, he expected to see guidance from the Energy & Commerce panel on that this week, as it considers PFAS bills. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), chairman of the environment subcommittee, said in a message on the committee's website prior to the hearing that the committee will consider a range of legislation on PFAS, including on reducing exposures and improving monitoring for the chemicals, expediting cleanups and allowing for safer disposal.
While Kildee pledged to particularly push PFAS legislation setting a national drinking water standard, he noted that the task force is approaching the issue from a number of fronts with various pieces of legislation. Kildee's district includes communities affected by PFAS contamination.
Kildee said he and task force co-chair Fitzpatrick are meeting with EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler this week to discuss PFAS, noting his wish for EPA to more urgently respond to the chemicals. The goal, he said, “is to get this done, whatever it takes. There's no excuse right now for not having . . . an enforceable drinking water standard,” he said.
“We know enough,” he said, adding that while that could evolve as more is learned, “we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We have a good understanding that PFAS is dangerous.” He said EPA also has a “good understanding” of what the maximum acceptable levels should be for the chemicals, and should adopt standards accordingly. New science can then be incorporated in that standard, he said.
He said that, speaking for himself, the drinking water standard is his highest priority in discussions with Wheeler, given the most dangerous type of exposure to PFAS is through direct ingestion.
Kildee also said lawmakers do not want to prescribe the level at which EPA should set a drinking water standard, adding that the science and health data should determine what that standard should be. “We think EPA currently has the authority to do this. This [H.R. 2377] requires them to do it.” But he said he does not think Congress wants to find itself in a position where it has to pass a bill every time there is a new science finding on PFAS.
He also dismissed any concern that two years would be too short a time for EPA to write a legally defensible drinking water standard, even though the process for developing a maximum contaminant level (MCL) often takes several years.
H.R. 2377 would require EPA to develop a primary drinking water regulation -- which Kildee expects would be an MCL -- within two years of enactment. The agency has not developed a new MCL in decades although it has indicated such a process generally takes several years.
The congressman said two years is a long time, and the science is usually not the hold-up. “I feel pretty strongly that we can get to the science if we're rigorous,” he said.
Some of the PFAS legislation Kildee is co-sponsoring would require DOD to cooperate with states on PFAS cleanup and monitoring. DOD has in recent months fought against Michigan and New Mexico attempts to enforce groundwater cleanup standards for PFAS contamination stemming from military firefighting foam.
But Kildee disputes the military's reliance on the argument that it is simply following the law, saying “the law always lags reality.” He says that when, for instance, the Air Force knows that PFAS is a threat, is in the water table and has a negative effect on public health, it should not take the law for the service “to do the right thing.” Lawmakers have been forced to take action because of their dissatisfaction with the military's use of the discretion it has, he said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/rep-kildee-key-task-force-leader-details-path-advancing-pfas-bills

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New Electrochemical Method Detects PFOS and PFOA

May 13, 2019 | Chemical & Engineering News

By Emma Hiolski

Bubbles and tiny electrodes may hold the key to faster, more cost-effective detection of perfluorinated surfactants that can contaminate drinking water. Researchers have developed an electrochemistry-based method to detect surfactants, specifically perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), with high sensitivity and specificity (Anal. Chem. 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b01060).
Perfluorinated surfactants are highly stable due to perfluoroalkyl moieties, and are common in products like nonstick coatings and fire-fighting foam. Chronic exposure to two such perfluoroalkyl substances, PFOS and PFOA, has been linked to health issues in humans. Though these two chemicals are no longer used in industry, they persist in the environment and can contaminate drinking water.
Long Luo, an analytical chemist at Wayne State University, began his search for a novel way to detect these harmful chemicals after one such PFOS/PFOA contamination event in a Michigan town during the summer of 2018. The most commonly used detection method uses high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS), which requires complex instrumentation and can cost up to $300 per sample, Luo says. Hoping to develop a simpler, less expensive method, the team turned to electrochemistry.
Their method is based on a phenomenon known as electrochemical bubble nucleation. Applying electric potential to an electrode in an aqueous solution splits water into hydrogen gas and oxygen. Ramping up the current increases gas concentration near the electrode until a bubble forms, blocking the electrode surface and causing the current to drop. Surfactants reduce surface tension and make it easier for such bubbles to form, meaning the amount of current required to form those bubbles is inversely related to surfactant concentration.
To test their method, Luo and his collaborators fabricated tiny platinum electrodes less than 100 nm in diameter (smaller electrodes are more sensitive). The team could detect PFOS and PFOA concentrations as low as 80 µg/L and 30 µg/L, respectively. Preconcentrating samples using solid-phase extraction moved the limit of detection below 70 ng/L—the health advisory level for drinking water set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The method also remained sensitive and selective for surfactant detection even in the presence of a 1,000-fold greater concentration of poly(ethylene glycol), a nonsurfactant molecule with a molecular weight similar to that of PFOS.
“Electrochemical methods, in general, have great promise for measuring very low concentrations of contaminants in complex matrices,” says Michelle Crimi, an environmental engineer at Clarkson University. “I look forward to hearing more about the future of this technology, including its validation in field-contaminated water samples.”
Creating a handheld device for testing water in streams and other field sites—not just drinking water—is the ultimate goal, Luo says. An important step in that process will be developing a pretreatment phase to eliminate other surfactants that also promote bubble formation at electrodes, like sodium dodecyl sulfate. Such interference would be unlikely in drinking water samples, Luo says, because most compounds are not as stable as perfluoroalkyl substances and are destroyed during water treatment processing.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/New-electrochemical-method-detects-PFOS-and-PFOA/97/web/2019/05

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New Jersey Asbestos-In-Products Ban Becomes Law

May 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed into law a bill to prohibit the sale or distribution of products containing asbestos.
The bill (A 4416) – which cleared the legislature with unanimous support in March – will authorise the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to enter retail establishments to determine compliance. And it directs the agency to establish a "public education programme to assure the widespread dissemination of information concerning the prohibition".
Violators of the act face penalties of up to $2,500 per offence.
Signed into law on 10 May, the prohibition takes effect on 1 September.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77509/new-jersey-asbestos-in-products-ban-becomes-law

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Lawmakers Target Sunscreen Ingredients to Save Coral

May 14, 2019 | E&E Climatewire

By Mark K. Matthews

Federal lawmakers have been thinking a lot about sunscreen lately — and not just because beach season is a few short weeks away.
The attention is more about two chemicals, oxybenzone and octinoxate, that are found in a number of popular sunscreens.
They are suspected of contributing to the destruction of coral reefs — in part by making reefs more susceptible to climate change — and two separate efforts on Capitol Hill are directed at that concern.
The more recent, put forward last week by House and Senate lawmakers, would have EPA study the effect oxybenzone and octinoxate have on human health and the environment.
"The ingredients in many common sunscreens are chemicals that have been proven to kill coral reef, harm marine life, and raise serious concerns about the impact they may have on people who use them," Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) wrote in a statement introducing the measure.
The second effort goes further. A small group of House lawmakers wants to stop swimmers from using sunscreens containing the two chemicals in protected waters around coral reefs.
Two South Florida legislators — Reps. Francis Rooney, a Republican, and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat — are spearheading the effort. Their intent is to slow the damaging effects these chemicals are believed to have on the health of coral reefs.
"Taking action in a bipartisan manner to make a difference for our delicate and precious coral reefs," Mucarsel-Powell wrote on Twitter soon after the bill's introduction.
Support for the second measure so far is limited. Only three of their colleagues have co-sponsored the bill: Reps. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) and Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) and Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón (R-Puerto Rico).
But Rooney has pressed the House Natural Resources Committee to hold a hearing on the measure, and the idea already has seen some success at the state level. Last year, Hawaii became the first state to ban the sale of sunscreens that contain oxybenzone and octinoxate, starting in 2021.
"Chemicals like the ones identified in the proposal can have harmful impacts on the marine environment and residing ecosystems like coral reefs," Case said in a statement. "This bi-partisan effort can hopefully stave off the impacts these chemicals can have on marine life — impacts that have already been witnessed in coral reefs around the world."
Under the legislation, the Commerce Department would be required to issue new regulations that would prohibit the use of "sunscreen containing oxybenzone or octinoxate in a National Marine Sanctuary in which coral is present."
Those areas constitute but a fraction of U.S. beaches and shorelines, but Rooney — a longtime scuba diver — said it's a first step toward trying to save endangered coral. Anything more, he added, would have little chance of overcoming opposition from the sunscreen industry.
"The rationale was that we just wanted to try and get something done," he said in a phone interview. "As it is, all the big chemical makers [and] suntan makers are ganging up against us — you know the typical special-interest politics that has so corroded Washington, D.C."
If the bill is successful, Rooney said it could give them momentum to look beyond national marine sanctuaries. "If we got it done, then we could start to get a groundswell to expand it," he said.
One driving force behind this legislation and similar efforts is warnings from the scientific community that chemicals such as oxybenzone can make coral reefs more vulnerable to the effects of global warming, such as bleaching (Climatewire, Aug. 13, 2018).
A barrier to change, however, is the popularity of sunscreens that contain oxybenzone and octinoxate. The industry behind them has concerns, too.
After Hawaii moved forward with its ban last year, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association warned the move could lead to less sunscreen use — which, in turn, could increase beachgoers' risk of skin cancer. They also argued that certain sunscreen chemicals are being unfairly blamed for other factors in coral destruction, such as "global warming, agricultural runoff, sewage and overfishing."Rooney bolsters green record
For Rooney, though, the sunscreen bill is the latest example of the Florida Republican stepping out for the environment.
The two-term lawmaker represents a southwest Florida district that overwhelmingly supported President Trump in the 2016 election. But Rooney — in contrast to Trump, who has called climate change a hoax — has become one of the few House Republicans to press for solutions to global warming.
He was one of just six House Republicans last summer to vote against a GOP-led resolution that slammed carbon taxes as "detrimental" to the U.S. economy; a tax on carbon emissions is seen by some activists — including those in conservative circles — as one way to counter climate change (Greenwire, July 19, 2018).
More recently, Rooney joined with several colleagues to introduce legislation that would impose a levy on carbon emissions beginning at $15 per ton and increasing by $10 annually.
He's also the sole co-sponsor of a resolution championed by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) that calls on federal policymakers to "achieve robust, economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions." The measure, which Gaetz has sold as a conservative alternative to the Green New Deal, has gotten little traction, however, with members of either party.
As a whole, Rooney said his work on coral reefs fits into his broader concern about the state of the world's oceans.
"Our marine ecosystems are under siege," he said.
Because of that, he said that his bill was "kind of a no-brainer."
"If we have the ability to provide [sun protection factor] barriers without putting these harmful chemicals on our reefs, why not do it?" he said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/05/14/stories/1060328187

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Bayer Ordered by Jury to Pay $2 Billion Damages in Roundup Trial (2)

May 14, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Joel Rosenblatt

Bayer AG was ordered to pay more than $2 billion in damages to a California couple that claimed they got cancer as a result of using the company’s Roundup weedkiller for about 30 years.
It’s the largest jury award in the U.S. so far this year and the eighth-largest ever in a product-defect claim, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Bayer has now lost three trials in a row over claims Roundup causes cancer.
A jury in state court in Oakland, Calif., issued the verdict May 13 after two other California trials over the herbicide yielded combined damages of $159 million against the company. Bayer is appealing those verdicts and vowed to challenge Monday’s as well.
The jury’s decision “conflicts directly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s interim registration review decision released just last month, the consensus among leading health regulators worldwide that glyphosate-based products can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic,” Bayer said in a statement.
The jurors agreed that Alva and Alberta Pilliod’s exposure to Roundup used for residential landscaping was a “substantial factor” in their non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The jury awarded damages of about $55 million for the couple’s medical bills and pain and suffering on top of the punitive damages.
The verdict will be vulnerable to a legal challenge by Bayer because courts have generally held that punitive damages shouldn’t be more than 10 times higher than compensatory damages.
Monsanto Co., the maker of Roundup acquired by Bayer last June, is the named defendant in similar U.S. lawsuits filed by at least 13,400 plaintiffs.
“The verdict in this trial has no impact on future cases and trials, as each one has its own factual and legal circumstances,” Bayer said in its statement.
While it was a “risky move” to ask for an award of more than $1 billion, the three verdicts against Bayer show jurors are convinced by evidence against the company, said Anna Pavlik, senior counsel for special situations at United First Partners LLC in New York.
“In this case there appeared to be more detailed evidence damaging to Monsanto, which strengthens plaintiffs’ cases down the pipeline even further,” said Pavlik, who has followed the trials.
Bayer Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann faces increased shareholder pressure over the litigation it inherited from Monsanto as investors have been closely watching developments in the costly Roundup lawsuits. Bayer shares have fallen about 40 percent since the $63 billion Monsanto acquisition. Bayer is scheduled to face more trials over the same claims this summer in St. Louis.
The Pilliods’ lawyer urged jurors to punish the company for covering up the health risks of the herbicide for decades. He told the panel his punitive damages request was roughly based on the gross profit of $892 million recorded in 2017 by Monsanto’s agricultural-chemicals division.
“That is a number that changes things,” attorney Brent Wisner said during closing arguments at the end of a monthlong trial.
Monsanto countered that the Pilliods had histories of poor health, disease and compromised immune systems that increased their risk of developing cancer. Defense attorney Tarek Ismail emphasized that Monsanto wouldn’t be responsible if the couple would have developed lymphoma without exposure to Roundup.
While some investors think a third loss could accelerate a global settlement, which analysts have said could top $5 billion, Pavlik thinks Bayer will fight on because it won’t start negotiating from a position of weakness.
If plaintiffs continue to win cases decided by juries in Missouri, the momentum in their favor “may push Bayer to begin to negotiate,” she said.
The case is Pilliod v. Monsanto Co., Cal. Super. Ct., No. RG17862702, 5/13/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bayer-loses-its-third-trial-over-claims-roundup-causes-cancer

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Commission to Amend Plastic Food Contact Materials Regulation

May 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission is planning to amend the Regulation on plastic food contact materials to reflect the authorisation of new substance poly((R)-3 -hydroxybutyrate -co-(R)-3-hydroxyhexanoate).

The amendment will modify Annex I of the Regulation, which includes a list of authorised monomers, other starting substances, macromolecules obtained from microbial fermentation, additives and polymer production aids.

The decision, triggered by a positive opinion by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) from January this year, extends the use of the substance. According to the Commission, it is now safe if "used either alone or blended with other polymers in contact with all foods under contact conditions":of six months or more at room temperature or below, including hot fill or short heating-up phases, provided that the migration of all oligomers with a molecular weight below 1,000 Da does not exceed 5.0 mg/kg food or food stimulant; andof less than six months at room temperature or below, including hot fill or short heating-up phases, provided the same conditions are met.
The amendment obliges businesses placing on the market the final article or material containing the substance to include in the supporting documentation a description of the method and a calibration sample if required by the method.

Furthermore, the Commission said that plastic materials and articles not in line with the new rules cannot be placed on the EU market 12 months after the entry into force of the Regulation.

The EU notified these changes to the WTO on 8 May this year. The proposed date for their application and adoption is September, while the proposed date of entry into force is six months from the publication. The WTO commenting period closes on 7 July.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77515/commission-to-amend-plastic-food-contact-materials-regulation

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UK Audit Committee Launches Consumer Survey on Hazardous Chemicals

May 14, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The UK's Environmental Audit Committee has launched a consumer survey to ascertain the level of public awareness and concern about the presence of harmful chemicals in everyday consumer products.
The survey is part of an inquiry the committee started in February to establish whether "ministers are doing enough" to protect public health and the environment from exposure to toxic chemicals in products such as furniture, food and toys.
The survey comprises 12 questions, including whether participants have sufficient knowledge about potentially harmful chemicals in products to make informed purchasing decisions, if more knowledge would change their purchasing behaviour and how information should be made available to them.
Among the issues the committee – part of the UK parliament – is addressing in the inquiry is how substances of very high concern (SVHC) should be regulated in the UK if and when it leaves the EU. The government promised to tackle chemicals "of national concern" in a 25-year environment plan released a year ago.
The first oral evidence session took place on 30 April, with witnesses including Rick Mumford, deputy director and head of science at the Food Standards Agency; Anna Stec from the centre for fire and hazards science at the University of Central Lancashire; and Michael Warhurst, executive director at the NGO CHEM Trust.
The next session, set for 14 May, will hear evidence from Daniel Kingdon, director of compliance and safety for EMEA at Amazon; Gemma Brierley, sustainability director, offer and supply chain at Kingfisher; Therese Lilliebladh, product requirements manager at IKEA in Sweden; and Jonathan Hindle, chairman of the British Furniture Confederation, among others.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77517/uk-audit-committee-launches-consumer-survey-on-hazardous-chemicals

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Energy News

Trade War Threatens to Stall Booming Wave of U.S. LNG Projects

May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Christine Buurma and Naureen S. Malik

With President Donald Trump poised to visit a new liquefied natural gas terminal in Louisiana -- the kind of project his administration has heralded as an example of U.S. energy dominance -- the latest trade war developments threaten the viability of similar facilities.
China announced May 13 it will raise tariffs on U.S. supplies of the super-chilled fuel to 25% from 10% beginning June 1 in retaliation for Washington increasing duties on Chinese goods. The move comes as the shale boom propels the U.S. into the ranks of the world’s biggest LNG exporters.
Trump is scheduled May 14 to tour Sempra Energy’s $10 billion Cameron facility, which is poised to start operating as the fourth U.S. terminal to ship the fuel.
The dispute between the two superpowers has already stalled investment deals and supply contracts involving U.S. exporters. Companies including NextDecade Corp., Tellurian Inc. and Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. are seeking billions of dollars worth of investment to construct new terminals. Meanwhile, competition in the global gas market is intensifying after Qatar and Russia announced massive expansion plans.
Chinese companies are unlikely to reach agreements with U.S. project developers until trade issues are resolved, according to Jason Feer, global head of business intelligence at ship broker Poten & Partners Inc. in Houston.
“As long as there is an active trade dispute, it’s very clear that it’s very unlikely that any Chinese company is going to sign and it also probably makes it difficult for any Chinese company to have serious conversations” with U.S. LNG developers, Feer said.
Representatives for NextDecade, Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. and Sempra didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. “We believe these are negotiation tactics and it will eventually be resolved,” Tellurian spokeswoman Joi Lecznar said in an email May 13, referring to the tariff increase.
The tariffs mean U.S. gas exporters will be less competitive, particularly against other Atlantic Basin suppliers like Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, said Madeline Jowdy, senior director of global gas and LNG at S&P Global Platts in New York.
“China’s status as the emerging largest buyer in the world of LNG puts more pressure on U.S. projects looking for investment dollars,” Jowdy said. “While there are other buyers and portfolio investors out there, not having China as a key investor and buyer will make project financing more difficult.”
In the nearer term, however, a fatter tariff on U.S. LNG may have limited immediate impact because the trade mostly dried up after Beijing’s 10% duty imposed in September. While China is still the fourth-largest buyer of U.S. LNG, it’s imported far fewer cargoes as the trade dispute has intensified: Only four have gone to China this year, compared with 32 in 2018, according to tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The biggest losers remain U.S. LNG project developers,” said Trevor Sikorski, head of natural gas, coal, and carbon with the London-based industry consultant Energy Aspects Ltd.
What Bloomberg Intelligence Says
“The Sino-American trade tensions are likely in the long run to hurt Cheniere Energy, Energy Transfer, Tellurian, NextDecade and other U.S. LNG exporters seeking to build new liquefaction plants. Despite the recent deal between China Gas Holdings and Delfin LNG, prospective buyers from China -- soon to become the biggest importing country globally -- may generally be reluctant to sign long-term purchase contracts with developers of future U.S. gas liquefaction projects until politicians resolve the wider trade dispute.”-- Elchin Mammadov, industry analystClick here to view the research
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/trade-war-threatens-to-stall-booming-wave-of-u-s-lng-projects-1

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China Hikes LNG Tariff to 25 Percent

May 13, 2019 | Houston Chronicle

By James Osborne

China announced Monday it will raise tariffs on U.S. LNG to 25 percent, part of a broad retaliation to President Donald Trump's announcement last week he was raising tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods.
The escalating trade war between the world's two largest economies sent financial markets reeling, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 2 percent Monday morning.
The new tariffs come as U.S. LNG exports are fast rising - up to almost 3.7 billion cubic feet a day in February, a more than 35 percent increase over 12 months earlier. Last year China was the fourth largest importer of U.S. LNG, after Japan, South Korea and Mexico, according to the Department of Energy.
"The reality is China is going to be the largest consumer of natural gas in the world very soon," said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Liquefied Natural Gas. "The U.S. is largest natural gas producer in the world, so the two sides deadlocked in a trade dispute its not a great piece of news. This further impedes the progress and slows things down."
Chinese tariffs on U.S. liquefied natural gas are currently set at 10 percent. The new tariffs, which include increases on a broad range of products worth $60 billion a year in trade, will go into effect June 1, according to China's Ministry of Finance.
Over the weekend the administration acknowledged the tariffs on Chinese goods were likely to hit U.S. consumers, who enjoy a steady flow of cheap goods out of Chinese factories. But Trump downplayed the impact on the U.S. economy Monday, tweeting that he expected many industries would leave China for Vietnam and other Asian nations to avoid the U.S. tariffs.
"There will be nobody left in China to do business with. Very bad for China, very good for USA! But China has taken so advantage of the U.S. for so many years, that they are way ahead (Our Presidents did not do the job). Therefore, China should not retaliate-will only get worse!" Trump wrote.
With numerous LNG export facilities in development along the Gulf Coast, export capacity is forecast to reach 8.9 billion cubic feet a day by the end of the year, making the United States the third largest LNG exporter in the world after Qatar and Australia.
But so far this year, only one tanker holding U.S. LNG has made delivery to China, a result of the 10 percent tariff announced by China last year.
For now, projects are expected to move ahead but there would likely be slow downs, Riedl said.
"The LNG will find another home. There will be other markets if this isn't resolved near term," he said. "But it makes it more challenging for U.S. products. They have to aggregate the same volume they were expecting China to take."
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/China-hikes-LNG-tariff-to-25-percent-13841024.php?cmpid=ffcp

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Trump's LNG Push at Odds with Oil and Gas Industry

May 14, 2019 | E&E Energywire

By Kelsey Brugger

President Trump plans to promote "energy infrastructure" at a liquefied natural gas exports terminal in Louisiana today, but his recent trade war with China and other actions have sparked sharp criticism from oil and gas interests.
Trump will tour the nearly complete Cameron LNG export facility the day after China hiked tariffs on LNG to 25% for cargoes arriving after June 1. The tariffs could exacerbate declines in shipments to China, poised to be the world's biggest LNG consumer, analysts said.
"What concerns us the most is that these are two of the largest players in the LNG market, and anything that disrupts the furtherance of long-term commercial relationships — which are needed for more LNG export capacity to be built in the United States — is an opportunity lost," said Fred Hutchison, president of LNG Allies.
Today's celebratory event in southern Louisiana — a red state that backed Trump in the last presidential election — has drawn praise in the last week from GOP politicians and trade groups that publicly thanked the administration for prioritizing American energy and speeding up the LNG facility licensing process.
But privately, some members of the oil and gas industry continue to grumble about specific actions the president has taken, or failed to take. They include the U.S.-China tariff battles, as well as ongoing levies on steel and aluminum imports, the delayed five-year drilling plan, and a key vacancy on a federal regulatory body overseeing some aspects of the oil and gas sector. And one industry source said talk of government subsidies for coal and nuclear plants "doesn't seem to go away."
"Part of trying to build the case for that initiative was [Trump] casting doubt on natural gas and the security of pipelines," the source said.
The oil industry's lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, also has taken Trump to task over the continuing trade war, starting the Twitter hashtag "tariffshurt."
"These retaliatory tariffs dampen the prospects for the growing U.S. LNG investment, hurt U.S. workers, and benefit America's foreign competitors," API Director Stephen Comstock said in a statement yesterday.
China's declared tax on LNG and other commodities comes more than a year after Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. In recent months, some Republican lawmakers have increasingly called on the president to undo them.
While total costs to energy companies are unknown, API cited companies like Plains All American Pipeline, which had to pay $40 million to obtain specialty pipe from Greece that was not available from U.S. steel manufacturers, according to the group.
"The impact on the competitiveness of U.S. LNG export projects is substantial — several hundred million dollars in some instances," Hutchison added. The administration has denied more than 100 petitions for exemptions from the tariffs.
Supporters say the tariffs encourage U.S. steel manufacturing, although most pipelines are made with material only available abroad. Trump has said the additional costs will be paid for by other countries. Over the weekend, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Fox News that some costs would be felt by American consumers, adding it is "a risk we should and can take without damaging our economy in any appreciable way."
In addition, oil and gas interests say they are baffled why the White House has not nominated a fifth commissioner to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, leaving the body split between two Republicans and two Democrats. Former Republican Chairman Kevin McIntyre died in January.
"The tardiness in acting on the FERC vacancies is concerning given that really if you are interested in energy and energy infrastructure, the commission is a key agency," one industry source said. "There is often a 2-2 deadlock on things."
As a practical matter, even without a fifth vote, three LNG projects were approved in the last three months. Democratic Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur sided with her Republican counterparts. But she has said she will consider each project on a case-by-case basis, and the industry is not taking her vote for granted.
And she is stepping down after her term expires next month — though she can stay until the end of the year and has said she won't leave until her successor is in place. When she does vacate her spot, the administration will have two positions to fill (Energywire, May 6).
The industry has also expressed frustration about the unveiling of the five-year drilling plan, which has been delayed for months. The latest draft was expected as early as last year, and Interior Department officials recently said the rollout is postponed pending court decisions (E&E News PM, April 25).
The president sided against oil and gas interests when he recently assured coastal Republican senators he would not repeal the Jones Act, a 100-year-old law requiring tankers to be built and manned by American citizens when traveling between U.S. ports. There are currently no Jones Act-approved LNG ships in operation. Repealing the law would have allowed LNG producers to transport their products from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast or Puerto Rico (E&E News PM, May 1).
"Those things are not small potatoes," one industry source concluded.
Some industry insiders say there is a common misconception that they are totally aligned with the Trump administration. Overall, they have achieved some considerable wins in terms of the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda and faster approach to licensing LNG facilities, they say.
"It's going to be a mixed bag of what you get since you deal with multiple constituencies," one industry source said. "It's been one where there have been some disappointments and also some areas where we wish they had acted more promptly."
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/05/14/stories/1060328633

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Trump's Latest Visit to Louisiana Highlights Goals and Risks of LNG Exporting

May 13, 2019 | The Advocate

By Anthony Mcauley

President Donald Trump’s visit to Louisiana on Tuesday, and his stop at Sempra Energy’s $10 billion Cameron Parish natural gas-export facility, highlights a key policy goal for his administration: boosting U.S. energy exports to support the thousands of jobs these projects are expected to create.
The timing of the visit has also put a spotlight on the risks that come with Louisiana's big bet on sending natural gas overseas.
On Monday, Chinese officials said the country would more than double its tariff on imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from 10% to 25%, in retaliation for the latest round of U.S. tariff increases in the ongoing trade war between the world's two largest economies.
China is the world's fastest-growing consumer of LNG, and is expected to import 69 million metric tons, or 9 billion cubic feet/day, of the fuel this year, representing nearly 9% of the world market, according to the International Gas Union.
And while the trade war continues to escalate, so too does Louisiana's construction of massive export facilities. Louisiana already leads the nation in LNG exports and its capacity is set to surge in coming years.
The state is home to Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass facility, the dominant LNG exporter accounting for about 3.5 bcfd, or about two-thirds of current U.S. capacity. The total exports from Louisiana will more than double, to 7.7 bcfd, with the addition of Sempra's plant plus the other two currently under construction, including an additional plant at Cheniere's facility and the new Venture Global Calcasieu Pass project.
Louisiana's LNG capacity would more than double again -- from just under 8 billion cubic feet a day (bcfd) to more than 16 bcfd -- if another four LNG plants approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are built.
There are four more behind that in the early stages of approval, some of which are looking at sites in Plaquemines and LaFourche Parishes.
"It is a positive that we’re becoming an (energy) export economy," said Pierre Conner, executive director of the Tulane Energy Institute. "The river and coast positions us well to take advantage of the fact the U.S. is becoming an energy exporter...but it comes with geopolitical risks."
The huge growth in U.S. LNG exporting capacity -- most of which is proposed for either Louisiana or Texas -- has the full blessing of Trump, who has urged FERC to speed through approvals of these projects.
Last moth, when announcing approval of the latest Louisiana LNG project, the Driftwood project at Calcasieu River FERC chairman Neil Chatterjee said, "this has been one of (President Trump's) top energy priorities." The president last week assured Louisiana politicians that he would maintain restrictive shipping rules that favor domestic LNG shippers.
U.S. natural gas prices have been kept low in recent years due to the massive production surge created through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. At the benchmark Henry Hub location, gas has consistently traded below $3 per million British thermal unit. In Asia, prices can be triple that, which makes it profitable to export U.S. gas overseas despite the cost to convert it to LNG and then ship it across the Pacific Ocean.
Japan is still the world's largest importer of LNG, forecast to bring in about 196 million metric tons, or about 23% of the world market, this year, according to the IGU. But it is a stagnant market, having grown less than 1% since 2015, and China is quickly catching up.
Louisiana sits at the nexus of several long-haul pipelines. Easy access to the Gulf of Mexico has drawn the interest of companies that want to build the massive export facilities that take in natural gas, cool and contract it into liquid form and then load it on specialized ships.
And while most of the thousands of new jobs would be temporary, coming during the construction phases of both the processing plants as well as new pipelines, the plants themselves will require far fewer workers -- usually about 300 direct employees on a site the size of Sempra's.
Jim Richardson, professor of economics at LSU, says the new jobs are welcome and will spur indirect employment in their areas, although they won't replace the jobs lost in the oil and gas sector over the last few decades.
At its height in the late 1970s, the oil and gas sector employed over 100,000 people in Louisiana, Richardson said. About half the jobs were lost during the oil slump in the early 1980s and another 20,000 disappeared when oil prices tumbled starting in 2014, he said, noting that the industry employs about 35,000 people in the state today.
"Nobody really expects that number to shoot up anytime soon," even with the gas infrastructure growth, as it is much less labor-intensive, says Richardson.
Louisiana's petrochemicals production has also expanded due to the availability of cheap natural gas that's used to power chemical plants. The previously-stalled South Louisiana Methanol project was revived in January as a $2.2 billion joint venture between Todd Corp. and SABIC of Saudi Arabia on that basis, but China's retaliatory tariffs on methanol and rising steel costs that have resulted from U.S. tariffs on Chinese steel put such projects at risk.
"The U.S. is turning into a net exporter (of methanol) by the end of 2019," according to Rachel Qian, an analyst at ICIS, which tracks chemicals markets. But a continuing U.S.-China trade dispute would mean China likely would look to alternative producers in Latin America and elsewhere for long-term contracts. That could have a chilling effect on new projects like South Louisiana Methanol, forcing executives at those companies to scramble for clients in slower-growing markets like Europe.
The LNG market has grown rapidly, and has been tagged by some promoters as a "bridge fuel" that is cleaner than coal and oil and can power the global economy while renewable energy builds capacity.
The U.S. has gone from producing just 1.5 million metric tons in 2015 to 68 million metric tons last year, and its planned or proposed capacity additions of more than 100 million metric tons a year -- 75% of the new capacity planned over the next couple of decades -- put it on course to compete with the current dominant suppliers, Australia and Qatar, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based energy watchdog.
https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/business/article_ba9b8b20-75a7-11e9-b02b-73d47318395d.html

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Lawmakers Introduce Efficiency, Research Bills

May 14, 2019 | E&E Daily

By Philip Athey

Lawmakers introduced legislation last week to promote energy efficiency as a means to address climate change and save taxpayer dollars.
H.R. 2664, by Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), seeks to reduce the government's energy bill by removing the current ban on fossil fuel use in government buildings while also requiring tighter efficiency standards.
"The federal government is the single largest consumer of electricity in the United States," Carter said in a statement. "Unfortunately, current law prohibits common-sense measures to make buildings more efficient and more cost-effective."
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), a co-sponsor on the bill, said the changes would increase the ability of the government to combat climate change and save taxpayers money.
"This bill works to address this problem by creating stronger energy efficiency standards, which results in fewer emissions, and reduces the financial burden of costly energy bills for the federal government and ultimately the American taxpayer," he said.
H.R. 2665, introduced by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), would authorize a grant program for smart technology to increase the efficiency of water and energy programs.
"It is imperative that we update our water infrastructure to ensure a sustainable water future for our country," McNerney said in a statement. "Under this bill, a program would be created to develop water, wastewater, and water reuse pilot projects that use less water and energy and incentivize new technology adoption."
H.R. 2659, introduced by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) and co-sponsored by Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), would require the Department of Energy to run a multiyear research program looking to increase the efficiency of gas turbines. The bill would provide the program with $50 million a year from 2020 to 2024.
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/05/14/stories/1060328001

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Texas Permian Oil, Gas Development Leading to Huge Growth Above Ground, Says TIPRO

May 13, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Carolyn Davis

Oil and natural gas development has skyrocketed over the past five years in the Permian Basin of West Texas, with communities in one of the sparcest regions of the state also experiencing huge growth, according to the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO).
The industry group in its Texas Permian Basin Report noted that gas extraction, pipeline transportation and support activities offer some of the highest employment rates in the region, but matching that growth to infrastructure, health care and education needs can be difficult.
“In just the past five years, oil output in the region has more than doubled,” TIPRO President Ed Longanecker said. “The growth of the oil and natural gas industry brings enormous opportunity and benefit to the Permian Basin, but that growth can also put a strain on infrastructure, education, health care and other areas essential to supporting the region and state across all industry sectors.
“Unique challenges also arise during a market downturn, something West Texans know all too well. Monitoring trends in the Permian Basin region is important in understanding the market factors that impact the economy and our fellow Texas citizens, as well as to further quantify the importance and influence of the oil and natural gas industry for our state and country.”
The report examines the leading industry sectors in the region, including oil and natural gas, which impact a 61-county area as identified by the Railroad Commission of Texas.
“A particular focus has been given to several factors, including labor force, population and workforce trends, education attainment and pipeline, and demographics,” TIPRO noted, to help stakeholders track and identify trends to meet needs for the region.
According to TIPRO, the Texas oil and natural gas industry purchased $204 billion of U.S. goods and services last year, 82% from state businesses. Texas Permian operators purchased $20 billion from 974 business sectors last year, 45% from within the region.
“A strong correlation between the economic vitality of the Texas Permian Basin oil and natural gas industry and the other key sectors in the region is evident,” TIPRO noted.
The group and its partners are addressing several priorities in the basin “that have larger implications in the region beyond the oil and natural gas industry, including transportation and infrastructure investment, workforce development, education, public safety, and health care, to name a few.”
Related initiatives are underway, including bills introduced during the 86th Texas Legislative Session to address some of the unique challenges facing West Texas and beyond, officials noted.
State House Bill 2154 would create the Generate Recurring Oil Wealth for Texas Fund, aka the GROW Texas Fund, to direct existing severance tax revenue paid by producers for specific reinvestment in the oil and gas patch strained by record-breaking production in recent years. Funds would then be used to expand and improve highways/public roads, increase law enforcement/first responder salaries, and revitalize education and skilled-workforce opportunities.
Total population in the Texas Permian region last year hit 2.06 million-plus, with around 477,000 millennials (20-34 years old). The regional population has inched up 3.3% over the last five years, with nearly 66,000 new residents, and it is projected to grow another 2.3% (47,000) by 2023, TIPRO said.
Overall, jobs in the West Texas region increased by 7% to nearly 967,000 between 2013 and 2018, with labor force participation flat at 59%. The oil and gas industry has a jobs multiplier of 10.6%, TIPRO noted, while the earnings multiplier for the industry in the region is 3.3%, with a sales multiplier of 1.6%.
Midland County, in the heart of the Texas Permian, was found to have the highest percentage of occupied housing units (93.2%), followed by Ector (90.3), El Paso (90.8 percent), Tom Green (89.8%), Crane (88.6%) and Gaines (89.1%).
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/118356-texas-permian-oil-gas-development-leading-to-huge-growth-above-ground-says-tipro

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Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) NEJAC Warns of Equity Harms from EPA Chemical Safety, EtO Rollbacks

May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA

EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC) is urging EPA to halt proposed rollbacks of an Obama-era rule on limiting safety risks from industrial facilities and of the agency’s risk assessment of the solvent ethylene oxide (EtO), warning that the efforts could increase public health risks for equity communities.
The panel outlined the concerns in a pair of May 3 letters to agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the first addressing EPA’s attempt to reverse Obama-era updates to the Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility safety program. The Obama administration's 2017 RMP rule sought to strengthen provisions in the existing program in the wake of an explosion at a West, TX, fertilizer facility that killed 15 people, including ten first responders who lacked data on the facility. EPA sought, and failed, to delay the 2017 rule but is still seeking to undo it.
NEJAC “is extremely concerned about the impacts of chemical disasters on environmental justice communities. We urge the Environmental Protection Agency to halt efforts to rescind, weaken, and further delay parts of the Chemical Disaster Rule,” also known as the RMP update, the panel says in the first letter. “Instead, NEJAC believes that the Chemical Disaster Rule should be fully implemented and enforced.”
In the second letter, the panel is opposing the agency’s request for information on EtO’s risks, warning it undermines an Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) review of EtO.
EPA in a proposed air toxics rule for Hydrogen Chloride (HCl) manufacturing facilities is inviting alternative views on EtO’s risks to public health. NEJAC warns this undermines the IRIS assessment and could possibly result in several weaker EPA air rules. HCl plants emit EtO, but the chemical is also commonly used to sterilize medical equipment and to fumigate certain foodstuffs including spices.
NEJAC says it “strongly objects to EPA using the regulatory process for a source of [EtO] to attempt to change the independently determined and scientifically robust health risk factor for [EtO]” developed by the IRIS program.
The panel further asks EPA to issue fresh regulations to curb EtO emissions from a variety of sources. “We
urge the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate Ethylene Oxide to protect public health, particularly for the workers in these facilities and the communities living adjacent to them, who are most vulnerable to health threats from both acute chemical releases and long-term exposures,” the panel says.
NEJAC asks for additional information on “EPA’s planned efforts to reduce emissions of this chemical from each of the industrial sources that it has identified, including (1) Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing; (2) Polyether Polyols Production; (3) Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturing; (4) Commercial sterilizers; (5) Hospital Ethylene Oxide Sterilizers; and (6) Ethylene Oxide production facilities.”
Regulating any of these sectors using weaker alternative risk values for EtO could lead to weak control requirements that would likely spark protest by environmental and public health groups, as cancer risks from the chemical have led to high-profile controversies. The American Chemistry Council, representing the chemical manufacturing sector, is pressing EPA to adopt a weaker cancer risk value for EtO.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/nejac-warns-equity-harms-epa-chemical-safety-eto-rollbacks

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Chemical Safety Board Needs to Consistently Follow Its Cyber Rules, Watchdog Says

May 13, 2019 | Nextgov

By Brandi Vincent

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, or CSB, needs to better define its policies and procedures around data, access and incident response to toughen its cybersecurity program, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General recommends.
The IG audited the agency, which is responsible for determining the circumstances around industrial chemical accidents, between July 2018 and March 2019 to assess the maturity of CSB’s information security program.
“CSB lacks established procedures for automated processes and authentication technologies, which could permit unauthorized access to agency systems,” the IG said in a report on its findings.
The watchdog used the fiscal 2018 reporting metrics document for the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, which rates entities between maturity levels one through five—the lowest level is labeled “Ad Hoc,” meaning there are no formalized policies, procedures or strategies, the highest level five is “Optimized,” or fully institutionalized and self-generating policies and practices. The IG rated CSB’s information security program to be at maturity level two, “Defined,” which means that the agency doesn’t consistently implement its policies.
“Failure to define and implement processes to address cybersecurity controls leaves the CSB susceptible to loss of data, security breaches and excessive incident handling time frames in the
event of a security incident,” the report said.
The IG made several recommendations, including that the agency implements the use of Personal Identity Verification card technology, as required by a directive from the Homeland Security Department or obtain a waiver from the Office of Management and Budget. The IG noted that it made the recommendation for PIV cards in two prior audits.
Under data protection and privacy, the IG said CSB must better document policies and procedures for data exfiltration and enhanced network defenses as required by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
CSB should also define its response processes for handling incidents that involve containing, eradicating, or recovering systems and document its rationale for not having an automated system that can detect potential incidents, the IG said.
The IG also recommended that the agency documents its established procedures around generating alerts to record pertinent data for suspicious activities.
“The CSB would greatly improve and strengthen its cybersecurity program by fully defining the policies, procedures and strategies [outlined in the report],” the IG said.
CSB accepted the recommendations and provided the watchdog with corrective actions and milestone dates aimed at mitigating the issues.
https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/05/chemical-safety-board-needs-consistently-follows-its-cyber-rules-watchdog-says/156962/

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

Outlook for Bill Hinges on Trump's Leadership

May 14, 2019 | E&E News PM

By Maxine Joselow

An infrastructure bill won't come to fruition this year if President Trump doesn't take the reins on funding, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer warned today.
"If the president does not lead on how we're going to fund this infrastructure investment, it will not happen," Hoyer said during an Infrastructure Week event at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
"Simple as that," the Maryland Democrat added.
The warning comes nearly two weeks after Trump discussed infrastructure at the White House with key congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
Both sides agreed to spend $2 trillion on an infrastructure deal at the meeting, although they did not discuss how to pay for it (E&E News PM, April 30). Pay-fors will be the focus of a subsequent meeting at the White House next week.
Several Democrats, including House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter DeFazio of Oregon, would like to fund an infrastructure deal by raising the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon.
But some GOP lawmakers remain wary of raising taxes and fear backlash from their constituents. Trump's public endorsement of a gas tax hike would provide political cover for these Republicans.
Hoyer, who attended the meeting last month, said he and his Democratic colleagues repeatedly urged Trump to show leadership on funding, even invoking the legacy of President Eisenhower.
"The president would need to lead the way, we all opined, in proposing ways to pay for this historic investment, as Eisenhower had done with the interstate highway system," Hoyer said.
Sean McGarvey, president of North America's Building Trades Unions, echoed this sentiment while speaking on a previous panel at the Infrastructure Week conference.
"We're looking for the president to lead," McGarvey said of his members, which include 14 unions representing thousands of construction workers.
Climate change has also been a part of infrastructure talks on Capitol Hill. Schumer wrote a December opinion piece in The Washington Post calling for any infrastructure deal to address global warming (E&E Daily, Dec. 7, 2018).
Leading environmental groups have taken up that call, with the National Wildlife Federation recently advocating a mandate for a "clean and resilient grid."
Hoyer briefly touched on climate change in his remarks, saying an infrastructure bill "means investing in a more resilient and reliable energy grid ... so that we can better integrate the energy we generate from renewable sources like wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and from my perspective, I also want to add nuclear."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/05/13/stories/1060327297

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North Dakota to Sue Washington over Crude-By-Rail Law

May 14, 2019 | E&E Energywire

By Mike Lee

Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has threatened to sue over a new state law in Washington aimed at restricting the amount of oil that moves into Washington by rail.
S.B. 5579, which Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed into law, would limit the vapor pressure of oil that's transported on rail cars. It would only apply to oil that's loaded or unloaded at new facilities, though, or at facilities that see an increase in the amount of rail traffic they handle.
Burgum said the law may violate North Dakota's rights under the Constitution's commerce clause.
"It is deeply disappointing that another state would attempt to impose restrictions that are both unreasonable and unsupported by science to block the transport of a legal product being shipped in a manner that is even safer than what federal standards require," he said in a statement.
Inslee, who's running for president in part on his record of promoting clean energy, defended the state law in a statement.
"As the federal government continues to fail to exercise its full powers to ensure the safe transport of oil by rail, Washington needs to remain vigilant in protecting our communities from the very real risk of derailments," he said.
A spokeswoman for Inslee said the law is intended to give shippers and refiners plenty of time to comply.
"Everyone is grandfathered until there is a 10 percent increase in crude-by-rail shipment for a refinery compared to 2018, plus a two-year lag after that before the new requirement would kick in," the spokeswoman, Tara Lee, said in an email.
While it's unclear how solid North Dakota's legal case will be, the dispute adds another round to the ongoing debate about the safety of moving oil by rail.
More than 90% of North Dakota's oil comes from the Bakken Shale field, a remote area near the Montana border. When the field first started producing in the early 2010s, there were so few pipelines that more than 70% of the oil was transported on rail cars.
Several pipelines have opened in the intervening years, and only about 17% of the state's crude is currently transported by rail, according to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority. About 29% of the crude coming to Washington's six refineries arrives by rail, according to the state Department of Ecology.
Bakken crude was involved in a string of high-profile fires and explosions during train accidents, including one in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people in 2013 (Energywire, Aug. 5, 2013).
Some experts said Bakken crude is more prone to ignite because it contains high levels of volatile compounds such as butane, ethane and pentane. In response, North Dakota passed regulations in 2014 setting a vapor pressure limit of 13.7 pounds per square inch.
In 2015, New York's then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) petitioned federal transportation officials to set an even lower limit — 9 pounds per square inch.
In 2017, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration began exploring the possibility of imposing a cap on crude volatility. The rulemaking is still pending (Energywire, Jan. 13, 2017).
The Washington law sets the same vapor pressure limit as what New York requested, 9 pounds per square inch.
North Dakota's congressional delegation sent a letter to Inslee urging him to veto the law, saying the proposal is preempted by federal law.
North Dakota could have a valid preemption argument, but courts have generally held that states can impose their own environmental standards. For instance, states have leeway to impose tougher renewable energy requirements for the electric power sector, said Alexandra Klass, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.
"When we're talking about things like rail cars and safety issues, where the federal government has a significant role — that's where sometimes there can be problems," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/05/14/stories/1060328659

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Environment News

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Join up to Preach Green New Deal, Take Jabs at Biden

May 13, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Miranda Green

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was in familiar territory Monday evening, speaking to a college auditorium of liberal-leaning students and young voters.
The 2020 presidential candidate joined progressive darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to preach the benefits of the ambitious Green New Deal climate plan, at a time when climate change is rising to prominence as a top issue for Democratic voters.
“How do we take on an industry with unlimited wealth, unlimited power, and unlimited resources?” Sanders said of the fossil fuel industry. “We need a political revolution.”
Speaking at Howard University, a historic African American college just a mile from the U.S. Capitol Building, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez praised the tenets of the climate action plan that in part aims to transition the U.S. economy to a 100 percent renewable energy grid by 2030 and create green jobs in the process.
Sanders, the 77-year-old son of a paint salesman who has had a lifelong career in politics, at times spoke in tandem with Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman politician who is not yet old enough to run for president but who unseated a 20-year incumbent in one of 2018's biggest upsets.
“Let me tell you what’s too much for me. What’s too much for me is politicians looking and allowing babies' blood to get poisoned in Flint, Mich. for corporate profits. What’s too much for for me, is coal barons coming up to Washington, D.C. and demanding bailout after tax breaks after bailout themselves and then not even paying their own miners pensions,” Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd.
“This is what a corrupt political system is about…In the last decade alone the oil and gas industry has pumped more than $700 million dollars’ worth of campaign contributions into federal, state, and local elections,” said Sanders. “In that same period, they spent more than $1.5 billion dollars lobbying Washington. This is what we are up against. The fossil fuel industry has been well rewarded for their campaign contributions and their lobbying.”
While Sanders' presidential campaign has not released a formal climate policy, he has staunchly backed the ideas of the Green New Deal from its infancy. Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal as a resolution in the House in February. Sanders was a co-sponsor of the Senate’s companion bill.
During his speech, Sanders dropped hints of what his own climate plan could look like, praising investments in solar and wind technology and calling for an end for all subsidies and tax breaks for oil and gas companies.
“These companies lied to the American people about the very existence of climate change and committed one of the greatest frauds in the history of our country,” Sanders said. “Just as the tobacco industry was ultimately forced to pay for the fraud they committed, the fossil fuel industry must be forced to do the same."
The lawmakers didn’t hold back Monday taking shots at other politicians, including fellow Democrats, who they view as failing to show the necessary urgency regarding climate action.
“I’m not here to tell you that all Democrats are good and all Republicans are bad and if you simply elect someone with a ‘D’ next to their name that our problems are solved,” Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd.
Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders have each knocked the climate plans put forth in recent weeks by other 2020 hopefuls.
On Friday Ocasio-Cortez criticized a "middle ground" climate plan reportedly in the works from former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign, calling it a "dealbreaker" for the party's progressives
"This is a dealbreaker. There is no 'middle ground' w/ climate denial & delay," tweeted Ocasio-Cortez.
"Blaming 'blue collar' Americans as the main opponents to bold climate policy is gas lobbyist 101," she continued. "We’re not going to solve the climate crisis w/ this lack of leadership. Our kids’ lives are at stake."
Sanders slammed Biden’s plan as a non-starter.
“There is no ‘middle ground’ when it comes to climate policy. If we don't commit to fully transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels, we will doom future generations,” Sanders tweeted. “Fighting climate change must be our priority, whether fossil fuel billionaires like it or not.”
Biden has not yet publicly released his proposal to combat climate change and aides have pushed back following a Reuters report about a "middle ground" proposal, arguing that his forthcoming plan was being mischaracterized.
Biden is currently leading many polls as the Democratic frontrunner. He is seen as one of Sanders’ biggest rivals in the presidential field.
At Monday’s rally Ocasio-Cortez took aim again at Biden’s plan without calling the candidate out by name.
“What’s too much for me,” she said, “is that Congress was first notified by NASA that climate change was going to threaten my life and everyone here’s life to come, and they did nothing.”
She continued: “If the same politicians who refused to act then, are going to try to come back today and say we need to have a ‘middle of the road approach’ to save our lives, that is too much for me.”
Biden was a member of Congress in 1989, the year Ocasio-Cortez was born.
Sanders turned the night’s event into a rallying cry for 2020 action.
“In my view, if younger people voted at the same percentage rate as older people do, we could transform this country regarding climate change and every other important issue,” he told the packed crowd to a standing ovation
“We’ve got an enormous amount of work in front of us. We’ve got to educate. We’ve got to organize. And we’ve got to fight for political power.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/443518-sanders-and-ocasio-cortez-join-to-preach-green-new-deal-take-jabs

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Progressives Going After Green New Deal Holdouts

May 14, 2019 | E&E Daily

By Nick Sobczyk

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted "conservatives on both sides of the aisle" at a Sunrise Movement event last night, as the group rallied with other progressives in Washington, D.C., to conclude weeks of climate rallies across the country.
Ocasio-Cortez, the face of the Green New Deal in Congress, rounded out the event with a fiery speech blasting corporate money and "middle ground" climate policies, in an apparent jab at former Vice President Joe Biden's reported middle-of-the-road climate platform for his presidential campaign (Climatewire, May 13).
"I am not here to tell you that all Democrats are good and all Republicans are bad and that if you simply elect someone with a 'D' next to their name that our problems will be solved," she said.
"I'm not here to tell you that, either, because I've been in that chamber. I've been told from people on both sides of the aisle that we need to frack more, that we need to build more pipelines."
The event at a packed auditorium at Howard University last night capped off Sunrise's weekslong effort to promote the Green New Deal and ensure that climate change is talked about in the Democratic presidential primaries.
It came on the six-month anniversary of the group's protest in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shortly after the midterm elections last year, which drew a crowd of more than 200 activists and an appearance from Ocasio-Cortez, who at that point had yet to be sworn in.
Last night's rally featured what amounted to a stump speech from Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator running for the Democratic bid, and an appearance from Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the Green New Deal's lead Senate sponsor.
Markey, to cheers from the crowd, railed against fossil fuel incentives that have been on the books for decades.
"Give us some of that socialism that the oil and gas industry has enjoyed for a decade," he said, calling for policies to promote renewables.
Sanders' appearance suggested he is one of the few — and perhaps the only — current presidential candidates who meet Sunrise's criteria, as the group pushes for a robust climate discussion in the 2020 election.
But it was Ocasio-Cortez who best summed up the kind of political paradigm shift that activists on the left have been pushing for in the face of climate change, even if Sanders is the one looking to win over their coalition in the presidential primaries.
The Green New Deal is not so much legislation to pass in the 116th Congress as it is a rallying cry for the progressives who want to build aggressive climate policies starting in 2021.
The "logic" that Democrats have operated under, Ocasio-Cortez said, has relied on "settling for less" to win elections.
"The idea that if we continue on that logic that we will somehow win after years and years of losing is the definition of insanity," she said.
The comments could ruffle some top Democrats, and the event itself, unsurprisingly, drew derogatory comments from Republicans before it even started.Reporter excluded
Sunrise may also have given critics more fodder by reportedly banning Washington Examinerreporter Josh Siegel from attending the event in person.
"I am not comfortable drawing attention to myself, and away from my work, but as @sunrisemvmt begins their D.C. rally with @AOC and @SenSanders, I thought it was important to say that Sunrise would not grant me a credential to attend the event because I work for the @dcexaminer," Siegel tweeted last night.
He said in an email to E&E News late last night that Sunrise had responded to his RSVP last week by specifically saying that "it will not be possible for The Examiner to attend the event on Monday."
Siegel said he followed up by defending his work with no response from Sunrise but did not attempt to attend in person for fear of missing the beginning of the livestream.
"I took it as a clear shot at the Examiner, given Sunrise has never responded to an email from me for story comment, others in the industry were accepted who RSPD'd after me, and they referred to the Examiner by name," Siegel said.
Sunrise spokesman Stephen O'Hanlon responded on Twitter by saying the group had to deny credentials to multiple outlets "across the political spectrum," citing a lack of space.
"Nothing personal against you," O'Hanlon wrote. He did not respond to a request for additional comment.'Crucial window of time'
Sunrise also used last night's rally to lay out its plans for the next few months, which mostly involve pressuring candidates to take up its platform.
Sunrise Movement Executive Director Varshini Prakash said the group would request three things from 2020 Democrats: that they sign a pledge not to take corporate fossil fuel campaign donation, make the Green New Deal a "day one" priority, and call for a primary debate entirely about climate change.
The group's deadline for candidates to meet those criteria will be July 30, the day of the second primary debate, Prakash said.
"It's a crucial window of time," she said. "That's one of our best chances yet to hold all these candidates accountable to our vision."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/05/14/stories/1060331177

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EPA Says States Cannot Sue Over Ozone Designations On Citizens’ Behalf

May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Stuart Parker

EPA is arguing that states lack standing for their litigation challenging the agency’s designations for which areas of the country are attaining federal ozone standards because they cannot contest the findings on behalf of their citizens, the latest attempt by EPA to fend off states’ lawsuits by arguing that they lack the necessary standing to sue.
The ozone designations are “federal matters under federal law. So state and local governments have no standing to challenge designations in the name of protecting their residents,” the agency argues in a May 10 brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appels for the District of Columbia Circuit in the case Clean Wisconsin, et al. v. EPA, et al, which consolidates the various challenges to the designations.
Echoing its recent filings in other cases, the agency attempts to downplay the standing principle established in the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in the climate case Massachusetts v. EPA that gave states “special solicitude” to sue the agency. EPA argues that the high court case was about states’ rights, whereas the ozone designations case is an attempt by states to claim standing based on protecting their citizens in an area violating the ozone standards.
Illinois and two cities claim standing through parens patriae, or the authority of a sovereign government to protect the interests of its citizens. However, EPA says “the state and local governments have no parens patriae standing. They claim standing on account of harm not to their own interests, but to their residents.’”
The agency argues that because issuance of ozone designations is a federal issue, states cannot represent their citizens in Clean Wisconsin. “As the Court has long recognized, only the United States . . . may represent its citizens and ensure their protection under federal law in federal matters,” EPA writes, citing a 2009 D.C. Circuit ruling that found environmentalists lacked legal standing for their suit claiming the federal government unlawfully failed to consider the potential climate change impacts of oil and gas drilling leases in seas off Alaska.
In the 2009 ruling in Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Interior, the court distinguished the environmentalists’ challenge from the standing principle established in Massachusetts. “[I]t was critical that Massachusetts sought to assert its own rights as a state under the Clean Air Act, and was not seeking to protect the rights of its citizens under the Clean Air Act,” said the unanimous opinion.
EPA’s brief in Clean Wisconsin says the 2009 decision bolsters its claim that states lack standing for the ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) designation challenges. The designations identify which areas are attaining or in nonattainment with the 2015 ozone standard of 70 parts per billion. Illinois and others are contesting several designations, with other states filing amicus briefs in support.
The agency’s position that the states and cities lack standing appears at odds with its pledge to defer to states’ technical expertise in implementing the Clean Air Act. The air law principle of “cooperative federalism” makes states the primary implementers of the law, giving EPA an oversight capacity. Critics of the Obama EPA claimed it overstepped its powers to override states’ decisions on a host of issues including area designations for EPA’s six NAAQS pollutants.
In a related case, State of Texas v. EPA, pending in the 5th Circuit, EPA is defending its designations for the stateagainst Texas’ accusations that the agency unlawfully designated counties as being in nonattainment. Yet EPA in that case makes no argument that Texas lacks standing to sue.
Court Setbacks
Although EPA is attempting to block the Clean Wisconsin case over alleged lack of legal standing, the agency has faced setbacks from other courts after challenging states’ standing.
For example, a federal district court judge in California rejected EPA’s claim that states lacked standing for their suit challenging over the agency’s slow implementation of an Obama-era landfill methane rule. In that case, the agency claimed that the states lacked standing because they could not prove injury from the agency’s inaction. EPA downplayed the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA that gave states “special solicitude” to sue the agency, saying it established a “limited right” to standing.
But Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California imposed strict compliance deadlines on EPA to implement the landfill rule after rejecting the agency’s attempts to distinguish the Massachusetts holding with the states’ claims of injury. States led by California in the State of California landfill suit did not rely directly on the high court’s finding, but said it bolsters their claim to standing.
On standing, Gilliam rejected the agency’s arguments and held that, “[J]ust as Congress afforded Massachusetts a right to challenge EPA’s decision not to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, Congress afforded the State Plaintiffs here the right to challenge EPA’s failure to perform its nondiscretionary duty.”
In the ozone NAAQS designations case, the agency also makes the claim that it deserves “extreme deference” from the court for its designations, based on their highly technical nature.
EPA has frequently claimed such deference from the courts before when faced with challenges to its attainment designations and has often been successful in defending its decisions.
“Perhaps no agency action commands more judicial deference than EPA’s decisions about whether to designate an area as attaining federal air-quality standards,” the agency says. EPA applied a “holistic” weight-of-evidence approach that considered well-established factors, including: air quality data; pollutant emissions; meteorology; geography and topography; and jurisdictional boundaries. The findings are “intensely fact-driven,” EPA says.
The agency argues that the states challenging the designations “have not shown, as they must, that EPA applied its holistic analysis either inconsistently or erroneously. That is because when not simply misreading the record, Petitioners focus on just a few pieces of evidence to the exclusion of the rest.”
EPA adds that, “At best, Petitioners have shown only that they disagree with EPA’s conclusions. But that is no reason for this Court to second-guess EPA’s judgments on the technical matters Congress left to the agency.”
In Clean Wisconsin, the State of Illinois and the cities of Chicago and Sunland Park, NM, along with environmental groups including Sierra Club, Clean Wisconsin and others say EPA either failed to designate sufficient areas in nonattainment, or failed to sufficiently expand nonattainment areas, in order to protect public health. Areas designated in nonattainment must impose tougher pollution controls on industry.
The petitioners say EPA wrongly “cherry-picked” data in order to minimize nonattainment areas and hence ease control requirements for local businesses.
Illinois claims error in EPA’s designations both with regard to counties in the state, and areas in neighboring states that it says contribute to ozone levels in Illinois. The state claims legal standing through parens patriae. Sunland Park makes similar claims with respect to the attainment designation of nearby El Paso, TX.
States including Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, and the District of Columbia have filed amicus briefs to support Illinois and environmentalists in the suit.
The BCCA Appeals Group, an industry body favoring fewer nonattainment designations, is intervening in the case to support EPA, along with Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin, and other industry groups such as the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Oil and Gas Association. The American Petroleum Institute is also participating as an amicus to support EPA.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-says-states-cannot-sue-over-ozone-designations-citizens%E2%80%99-behalf

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CEI Launches New Data Quality Act Challenge To EPA Climate Risk Finding

May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Doug Obey

The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is citing new White House guidelines on implementing the Information Quality Act (IQA) in a fresh attempt to thwart use of EPA's decade-old “endangerment finding” that supports regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The effort reflects the group's latest effort to question the landmark regulatory finding that the Trump EPA has decided not to revisit, to date, even as the agency is crafting aggressive rollbacks of various Obama-era climate rules.
“We ask EPA to determine that its 2009 GHG Endangerment Finding and supporting Technical Support Document (TSD) do not meet the requirements of the” IQA, says the group's May 13 petition to EPA.
CEI frames its petition as a “request for correction” under the IQA, as implemented through EPA and White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) guidelines.
The group urges EPA to “stop disseminating” the finding until a “valid peer-review process” is conducted. It also urges the agency to reconsider the finding in light of “objections and problems” the group expects will be raised by peer reviewers and the public during that future process.
CEI's petition specifically references OMB's expansion of its IQA guidelines in an April 24 memo that sets a 120-day deadline for response to such requests, and the memo also references the need to factor in time for OMB to review EPA's responses to alleged deficiencies in the finding.
“EPA's failure to properly apply OMB Information Quality standards led to a variety of problems with the peer review process, all in violation of the IQA,” CEI's petition states, citing numerous alleged flaws to argue that the finding lacked a valid peer review process as required under OMB guidelines.
These flaws include failure to consider allowing the public to nominate peer reviewers; allowing EPA staff to serve on an internal review panel; alleged conflicts of interest in EPA's internal process; and failure to certify compliance with the IQA.
And CEI cites a 2011 Inspector General report as identifying many similar problems in the agency's compliance with the IQA with respect to the finding.
CEI requests that EPA "stop disseminating" the finding until a "valid” peer review process is conducted, and combines this with a new request to reconsider the finding in light of "objections and problems" raised by peer reviewers and the public during that future process.
“The law requires the EPA to stop circulating the endangerment finding until it can prove it has corrected the errors documented in CEI’s petition,” CEI attorney Devin Watkins says in a press release.
The new CEI petition adds to other attacks by CEI on the finding including a broader petition asking the agency to revoke the finding.
And it cites provisions in the recent OMB memo that require a “point-by-point response to any data quality arguments” raised in a request for correction.
The CEI petition is another example in the long-running fight over both climate policy and the process for reviewing science used by EPA to justify regulations, with OMB's recent guide seeking to impose public data requirements similar to those the Trump EPA has sought to adopt in its controversial science transparency rule.
EPA's own science advisers have criticized the long-pending science transparency proposal, arguing it would jeopardize the use of studies that rely on confidential medical and business information and would undermine the integrity of future rules.
CEI's petition comes despite some recent indications that conservative groups might be backing away from efforts to entirely repeal the GHG risk finding in favor of reliance on specific regulatory rollbacks.
Observers have long argued that a direct attack on the finding would create both a political firestorm and face a heavy burden in court.
CEI has also previously indicated it is separately considering whether to file an IQA challenge to the most recent National Climate Assessment laying out the domestic implications of current and future climate change.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/cei-launches-new-data-quality-act-challenge-epa-climate-risk-finding

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Walmart Has Thousands of Suppliers. It's Slashing Their CO2

May 14, 2019 | E&E Climatewire

By John Fialka

A corporate cause emerged from Hurricane Katrina.
Among the storm's tragic results in 2005 were over 1,835 deaths, $135 billion in damage and 1 million displaced people. There was also at least one positive outcome. It's called "Project Gigaton," an international plan by Walmart to cut greenhouse gases 1 billion metric tons by 2030 from its sprawling supply chain. If it works, it could be one of the world's most ambitious attempts so far to curb climate change: the equivalent of taking 212 million cars off U.S. highways for one year.
The effort, first announced in April 2017, and others like it have spread to more than 5,000 companies. Unlike government regulations, which stop at national borders, these efforts are described in the words of one recent report as rapidly "cascading" across international boundaries.
The trigger for much of this action is Walmart, a chain of discount stores that is believed to be the world's largest retailer with over 11,000 stores in 28 countries. Headquartered in rural Bentonville, Ark., it is known mainly for its low prices, hyperaggressive growth since its first store opened in 1962 and "small town values."
Walmart was both a victim and a responder during Katrina. The night when Jessica Lewis, the co-manager of the Walmart in Waveland, Miss., (population 6,435) discovered her store was a sodden, blacked-out mess of debris, she sent a bulldozer in to clear a path so employees with flashlights could recover dry clothes, food and bottled water to share with the community.
During a closed-circuit speech to Walmart employees a month after the storm, Lee Scott, then Walmart's president and CEO, explained that Lewis didn't ask for permission. She "did the right thing, a trait I am proud to say is bred in our culture." In all, Walmart was one of the storm's earliest responders, sending more than 2,500 truckloads and donated goods into stricken areas.
"Katrina was a key personal moment for me," Scott recalled later. "I also saw the pain, the difficulty and the tears."
Dealing with difficulties was business as usual for Scott. For about a year before Katrina, he had been conferring with consultants and aides about how to handle mounting criticism directed at Walmart. His company's giant stores were often depicted in the media as stealing customers from small, downtown businesses across the United States. Walmart paid low wages, pushed its employees and managers into working long hours, and occasionally fought unions.
But in the aftermath of Katrina, Scott was hearing something new. The company's response to the storm was being praised. "If the American government would have responded like Walmart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis," Aaron Broussard, president of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, had remarked on national television.
This gave Scott what he described as a "lightbulb" idea about how Walmart and other big businesses might use their reach and influence over time to gradually reduce future threats of killer storms and other aspects of climate change. "We should view the environment as Katrina in slow motion," he said in a speech to his employees.
He explained how, over the next few years, Walmart would intensify its efforts to use more renewable energy, increase energy efficiency and recycle its wastes, but Scott didn't stop there.
Walmart would extend the campaign to its growing number of affiliates in China and then enlarge the effort by encouraging its worldwide supply chain, a network of over 60,000 companies that sell its products and raw materials, to get involved. The company could do that by showing "preference" to suppliers that "set their own goals and aggressively reduced their own emissions."
Scott said he would share any technological breakthroughs with Walmart's competitors. "We need to cut emissions worldwide."'It was their idea'
Nobody in Walmart, including Scott, knew what it would require to meet these promises, but the company's managers were used to big goals. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, often encouraged his aides to venture into unknown areas. It was estimated that 80% or more of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by big corporations came from their suppliers. But how to get suppliers to reduce them was among the unknowns.
"You know, we are in uncharted territory as a business," Scott explained in his 2005 speech. "You won't find any case studies at the Harvard Business School highlighting answers for companies of our size and scope."
In 2005, there were a few people who were already trying to measure the impacts of climate change on companies. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) was founded in 2000 in London after a group of almost 50 investors complained that they couldn't compare one company's climate risk against another.
In 2008, Walmart, which had disclosed its own risks and emissions, approached CDP to see how the emissions of companies in its supply chain might be measured. "It was their idea. They came to us and we said sure, we'll do that," explained Sonya Bhonsle, who currently heads the supply chain research program for CDP.
Eighteen other corporations, most of them large ones, were also attracted to the idea. Up to that point, according to Bhonsle, there was no scientific method to pinpoint where large greenhouse gas emissions might be in a supply chain or strategies to show companies how to reduce them.
"Some companies were setting targets based on rhymes. You know, like 20 megatons by 2020. That's what happened when marketing people got involved," she said. But Walmart wanted details. "You cannot reduce what you're not measuring."
Walmart, Bhonsle said, became the first retailer to submit to a science-based examination of where its corporate emissions came from. Since then, 150 other companies have followed suit. Fifty-seven of them were in Walmart's supply chain, and 64 others are now setting up similar systems.
In doing that, the big companies were setting themselves as examples, then pushing their suppliers to find and limit their own emissions. Bhonsle says Walmart stands out in this practice. "Because of the place that they hold in their suppliers' hearts — from Kellogg's to really small companies — everybody wants to make sure they're seen as a supplier to Walmart."
The effort got to middle-sized companies that were beyond the reach of environmental groups and small companies that sometimes didn't know where to begin. Bhonsle recalled one that responded, "Thanks very much for inviting us into this program, but we don't own any greenhouses." Walmart created digital calculators and opened portals on its website to help explain how its suppliers could identify and then measure their biggest emission sources so they could report them to CDP.
In 2009, Walmart expanded its definitions of climate-related problems and how to deal with them by creating a "sustainability index" that encouraged companies to gauge things such as energy efficiency; the life cycles of products; recycling; waste reduction; and products that caused deforestation, like meat from illegal cattle grazing. It later included accounting for wasted water and agricultural practices that raised emission levels and polluted the environment by using too much fertilizer.
As Walmart's definitions expanded, so did the actions of its suppliers. According to the most recent CDP report, there has been a "cascading effect." In 2017, it noted that 23% of Walmart's suppliers began recruiting their own suppliers to report their practices. Last year, the recruiting effort sped up to 35%.
This year, CDP reported that 115 "major purchasing organizations from around the world" are deeply involved in studying their emissions. Together, they have a combined income of $3.3 trillion. "In many cases they are moving considerably faster and further than governments have required," CDP noted.
CDP gives companies the option to disclose their emissions and efforts to reduce them either publicly or privately. It doesn't audit them, but as it gathers more data, the outliers stand out. So both CDP and Walmart urge companies to provide "transparent" measures of their efforts, so consumers can see and trust them.
There is prestige in being seen with other companies on the CDP webpage, explains Bhonsle. If companies exaggerate their performance and "anyone catches them out, it can go horribly for them."A pickup, not a Rolls-Royce
One of the centers of the cascading effect is China, now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. CDP noted that pressure from investors caused 50 companies in China to report climate emissions and risks. Pressure from Walmart and other big companies prodding their supply chains to take more actions resulted in over 500 Chinese companies reporting.
In 2013, Walmart tightened its focus on its Chinese suppliers by partnering with the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund, which formed a "Climate Corps," sending young engineers and other professionals to promote the sustainability index in hundreds of Chinese factories supplying Walmart and other U.S. companies.
Four years later, when Walmart unveiled its biggest goal to cut greenhouse gases — Project Gigaton — it devoted a special subset of the goal to its Chinese suppliers, suggesting they could achieve a 50 million metric ton reduction by 2030. That would be the equivalent of ending the emissions from supplying electricity to 40 million Chinese households.
That sounded daunting, but the goal fits with a number of recent Chinese government programs, including a national trading system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. "Our journey in China echoes what we've seen throughout our 25-plus years of working with companies. Setting big goals drives innovation and business value," said Elizabeth Sturcken, who runs EDF's business liaison program.
Recently, Walmart added more leverage to its requests from suppliers by forming a partnership with HSBC Group, formerly known as Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd. It is one of the world's largest international banks.
In a joint statement with Walmart, HSBC invited Walmart suppliers "who demonstrate progress" in either Project Gigaton or Walmart's Sustainability Index to apply for "improved financing from HSBC based on their sustainability ratings."
"The procurement standards of a buyer are a huge driver for sustainability," explained Natalie Blyth, an HSBC official.
All this goal-setting and prodding has helped Walmart enlarge its presence in China. The company opened 33 new stores in China last year. All of them use "energy-saving features," according to the company. Four of them recently earned a prized "green store" certificate awarded by the Chinese government.
Just what Walton, who started his company by setting big goals on stores in small-town America, might think of these results is unknown. While he made several members of his family multibillionaires, he also passed on a lot of value to his customers.
He disliked showing off his wealth and drove the Ford pickup truck he bought in 1978 until he died in 1992. Now it is parked in the Walmart museum in Bentonville (population 49,298).
"Why do I drive this truck?" asked Walton, whose tight focus on his galaxy of stores lapsed only occasionally, usually during bird-hunting season. "What am I supposed to haul my dogs around in, a Rolls-Royce?"
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/05/14/stories/1060328353

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EPA May Relax N.C. Implementation of Startup-Shutdown Rule

May 13, 2019 | E&E News PM

By Sean Reilly

Only weeks after seeking to give Texas a break on 2015 regulations targeting excess emissions from industrial plant startups and other factors, EPA is weighing action regarding North Carolina, according to a new court filing.
EPA's regional office in Atlanta "expects to soon complete consideration of whether to issue a proposal" related to startup, shutdown and malfunction provisions in North Carolina's state implementation plan, according to the status report filed late last week by agency attorneys with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The filing does not spell out what EPA is contemplating, and press aides did not reply to emails late Friday and today seeking more information.
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has not requested any action from EPA, Sharon Martin, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said today. Asked why federal officials would then be pursuing possible changes, Martin replied, "That's a question for EPA."
The status report came in the course of litigation over the 2015 rule that has now been on hold for two years at the Trump administration's request.
Among other requirements, the rule barred states from allowing "affirmative defense" provisions that shield plants from civil penalties for excess emissions stemming from what are known in regulatory shorthand as "SSM" events.
Seventeen states, including North Carolina and Texas, have filed suit in the D.C. Circuit to overturn the rule (Greenwire, Aug. 12, 2015).
The administration sought the hold on legal proceedings to give it time to ponder its position on the Obama-era rule. It is continuing the review to decide whether it will reconsider "all or part" of the 2015 regulations, according to last week's report.
Late last month, EPA published a proposal that would allow Texas to keep a version of affirmative defense language in its state implementation plan. The agency acted at Texas' request; a 60-day public comment period on the proposal ends June 28.
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/05/13/stories/1060327597

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