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AM ACC 5/16/2019

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Business Groups Lament Restoration of Product Lines in New Section 301 List
May 15, 2019 | Inside US Trade
By Isabelle Hoagland

Several items dropped from previous tranches of Section 301 tariffs are being targeted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in a new draft list of roughly $300 billion in Chinese imports that could be hit with 25 percent duties, drawing the ire of some in the private sector.
(ACC Mentioned) Basel a Potential Game Changer in Plastic Scrap Trade
May 15, 2019 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken

A landmark United Nations treaty adopted May 10 limiting trade in plastic waste may, in the eyes of some industry groups, have unintended consequences that will hurt recycling.

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Half of Americans Admit to Using a Swimming Pool as a Bath. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t
May 16, 2019 | Globalnews.ca
By Leslie Young

Nearly half of Americans say that they’ve rinsed off in a swimming pool after exercise, after yardwork, or even gone swimming as a substitute for a shower, according to a new poll.
(ACC Mentioned) Role of Mechanistic Data Prominent in US Hexavalent Chromium Debate
May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Turley

Industry has said the EPA’s IRIS programme should focus on mechanistic data and take care not to overstate the significance of some human studies, in its ongoing assessment of hexavalent chromium.
(ACC Mentioned) National Academies Back Class-Based OFR Assessments in US
May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

A National Academies report has backed a class-based approach as the "only possible practical" one for addressing organohalogen flame retardants. But a committee of the independent institution says the substances cannot be treated as a single class for hazard assessment.
Congress Can’t Wait for EPA on Nonstick Chemicals: Tonko (2)
May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Congress must act now to require the EPA to use a range of regulations to clean up and regulate a large group of chemicals contaminating water systems across the U.S., Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said during a May 15 hearing.
As PFAS Bills Stack Up, Lawmakers Debate Regulatory Schemes
May 16, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Ariana Figueroa

A bipartisan effort to address common industrial chemicals in drinking water sparked debate at a House hearing yesterday over whether the compounds should be regulated as a broad class or individually.
Republicans Detail Concerns Over Bipartisan PFAS Bills, Seek EPA Input
May 15, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan

House Republicans are raising concerns that a suite of pending bills, many bipartisan, that seek to address contamination stemming from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) could limit EPA's ability to prioritize risks and short-circuit existing review processes and are calling on Democrats to allow the agency to provide further input.
Lawmakers at Odds over How to Tackle Spread of Harmful Chemicals in Water
May 15, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Rebecca Beitsch

House lawmakers on Wednesday reviewed over a dozen pieces of legislation regarding the spread of harmful nonstick chemicals in drinking water, exposing the lack of agreement on how to deal with the problem.
Jury Win for Pep Boys Upheld in Customer Asbestos Exposure Suit
May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes

Pep Boys successfully defended its trial win in a case alleging it negligently sold asbestos-containing auto parts to a California couple who died of mesothelioma.
Amazon Strengthens Enforcement Against Lead, Cadmium in Children’s Products
May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer

Online retailer Amazon will require those selling children’s school supplies and jewellery on its website to submit lab reports that confirm the products are compliant with US state and federal limits for lead and cadmium.
US Toxics Agency Releases Draft Profiles
May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has released for public comment draft toxicological profiles for several substances.
EU Adopts Opinion on Safety of Fragrance Ingredient
May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The EU’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) has adopted an Opinion on the fragrance ingredient, butylphenyl methylpropional (p-BMHCA).
Cosmetics Europe Project Pushes on with Internal TTC Concept
May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies

An industry-funded project is close to building a database of 'internal' thresholds of toxicological concern (iTTCs) for chemicals with limited toxicological data.

Energy News

U.S.-China Trade Dispute Seen Complicating Domestic LNG Export Growth
May 15, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Leticia Gonzales

An escalating trade war between the United States and China will put U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters at a disadvantage and threatens to stall not-yet-sanctioned projects, according to analysts.
China LNG Buyers Seek to Swap U.S. Cargoes After Fresh Tariffs
May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Stapczynski

Liquefied natural gas buyers in China are seeking to swap their U.S. shipments for cargoes from other nations after Beijing pledged to raise tariffs amid a deepening trade dispute, according to traders with knowledge of the situation.
Plastics Industry on Track to Burn Through 14% of World’s Remaining Carbon Budget: New Report
May 15, 2019 | DeSmog (Blog)
By Sharon Kelly

The plastics industry plays a major — and growing — role in climate change, according to a report published today by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
House to Use Spending Bill to Hit Brakes on Offshore Drilling
May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz

A Democratic bill in the House of Representatives aims to be the final nail in the coffin for an Interior Department plan to open up huge swaths of coastline to offshore drilling.
N.Y. Denies Permit for Shale Expansion Project
May 16, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)

State environmental regulators yesterday denied a water quality permit for a 24-mile underwater pipeline from New Jersey to Queens that backers say is crucial for meeting rising demand for natural gas in New York City and Long Island.
Democrats Cool on Policy Riders for Energy Spending Bills
May 15, 2019 | Politico Pro
By Alex Guillén and Anthony Adragna

With appropriations season in full swing, House Democrats are mostly steering clear of the policy riders that have bedeviled the process in previous years.

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

Transportation and Infrastructure News

Energy and Commerce Rolls out Infrastructure Package
May 15, 2019 | E&E News PM
By Maxine Joselow

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee today released a broad infrastructure package aimed at addressing climate change, clean energy, broadband access and water infrastructure, among other things.
House Energy Panel Democrats’ Infrastructure Bill Targets Climate, Water
May 15, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves

House energy panel Democrats are floating a sweeping infrastructure bill that targets climate change and drinking water quality with billions of dollars in grants for energy efficiency, electric vehicles, renewable power, and drinking water systems, including efforts to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) From Making It to Managing It, Plastic Is a Major Contributor to Climate Change
May 15, 2019 | Environmental Health News
By Brian Bienkowski

Plastic is polluting oceans, freshwater lakes and rivers, food and us — but it's also a major contributor to global climate change, warns a new report.
(ACC Mentioned) As Ohio Valley Ponders Plastics Growth, Report Warns of Threat to Climate
May 15, 2019 | 89.3 WFPL News Louisville
By Brittany Patterson

As a new plastics industry emerges in the Ohio Valley, a report by environmental groups warns that the expansion of plastics threatens the world’s ability to keep climate change at bay.
Interior Chief Dismisses Climate Concerns in First Natural Resources Hearing: 'I Haven't Lost Any Sleep over It'
May 15, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Miranda Green

Democratic House lawmakers on Wednesday pressured Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to commit to considering climate change in all future agency decisions, but the former energy lobbyist wouldn’t take the bait.
Climate Guidance Revamp to Give Public a Say, Trump Adviser Vows
May 16, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott

President Donald Trump’s top environmental adviser vowed May 15 to give the public a chance to weigh in on the Trump administration’s plans for replacing the Obama administration’s broad climate change policy.
New Industry-Environment Coalition Seeks To Break Hill GHG Gridlock
May 15, 2019 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey

A new coalition of top businesses and environmental group is launching to support enacting new legislation “as soon as possible” that includes “an economy-wide price on carbon,” the first time in over a decade that such a group has formed to advance major federal climate change policy.
We Just Broke a CO2 Record. Here's Why It Matters
May 16, 2019 | E&E Climatewire
By Chelsea Harvey

Another climate milestone soared by last weekend when scientists announced that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit 415 parts per million for the first time ever (Climatewire, May 7).
Republican Tax Writers Reject Carbon Pricing
May 16, 2019 | E&E Daily
By Nick Sobczyk

Republican members of the House tax-writing panel yesterday warded off any talk of a carbon tax on the right, underscoring the tenuous GOP position on climate change as Democrats use their majority to message on the issue relentlessly.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Business Groups Lament Restoration of Product Lines in New Section 301 List

May 15, 2019 | Inside US Trade

By Isabelle Hoagland

Several items dropped from previous tranches of Section 301 tariffs are being targeted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in a new draft list of roughly $300 billion in Chinese imports that could be hit with 25 percent duties, drawing the ire of some in the private sector.
USTR on Monday issued a draft notice calling for public comment on the list of more than 3,800 targets. That same day, President Trump told reporters he had not yet decided whether to approve the additional tariffs, despite previous assertions that they would be imposed.
The targeted products, known as list 4, include several harmonized tariff schedule subheadings that were omitted from lists two and three after USTR decided to narrow the scope of those tariffs based on input from stakeholders.
Ed Brzytwa, director of international trade at the American Chemistry Council and a former USTR official, noted an approximate $3.5 billion in chemical goods included on a draft of list 3 -- a round of tariffs covering $200 billion in Chinese goods -- was dropped from the final. Some, he said, have been included on the draft list 4.
“Looking at list 4, and this is preliminary, it appears that a number of products taken off list 3 got added into list 4,” he told Inside U.S. Trade. “In a sense, they were likely running out of imports to target so, to a certain extent, they probably had to add the products that were previously excluded.”
“We are told one day that we are excluded and now we are hit with an increase and more tariffs on more products,” he added. “This is not helpful for the long-term success and growth in the chemical sector and American economy writ large.”
Several private-sector sources questioned the strategy behind the process, with one source saying “this is not how to run a trade policy -- it is injecting so much uncertainty and unpredictability into the business environment.”
For example, bike helmets, car seats and several other items that were not included on the final list 3 are on draft list 4.
In its May 13 notice on the proposed list, USTR said “Product exclusions granted by the Trade Representative on prior tranches from this investigation will not be affected.” Asked for comment, USTR said the “product exclusion clause in the Federal Register notice refers to those excluded through the product exclusion process established for the $34 billion and $16 billion tariff actions."
“The clause does not refer to products that were on a proposed list, but that were not ultimately included on a final list,” USTR added. “Some of these types of products have been included on the new proposed list for further review under the public notice and comment process.”
A private-sector source described a “tremendous frustration” in the business community about list 4’s proposed targets but said “at this point” it was likely difficult for USTR to carve out products because the proposed tariffs are slated to cover such a high volume of trade.
Regardless, the source added, “I think there is a tremendous degree of frustration on behalf of associations and companies that we’ve worked so hard to get certain tariff lines removed from prior actions only to have them come back in in later lists.”
While it is a “small victory” that product exclusions granted to date will be honored, the scope of list 4 is going to be extremely costly, the source added.
Another source -- a trade lawyer -- questioned how companies can “fix this problem,” asking whether “they have to go through the process again” for list 4.
“If so, why? What is the substantive basis for putting these HTS subheadings on a new proposed list if USTR determined to remove in the first place? What has changed about the basis for USTR’s initial decision?” the lawyer asked.
Another private-sector source said six or seven tariff lines that were taken off list 2 are all within the scope of list 4. Accordingly, the agency is penalizing “people who were effective enough” to get the full tariff lines removed, the source continued.
“I think it’s intentional because [USTR] is trying to maximize the amount of pain that is being felt and trying to make it as impactful as possible,” the source continued.
Many business associations are also questioning whether an exclusion process will be established for USTR’s newest list while lamenting a lack of details on the exclusion process the agency said it would undertake for list 3.
“USTR committed to providing an exclusion process on list 3, but we still haven’t seen a [Federal Register] notice on that. Our companies desperately want to engage in [those processes],” another source said, adding “there is definitely frustration.”
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Fox Business on Sunday that while both Washington and Beijing would pay for the tariffs on Chinese goods, “politically, the country is completely behind the president and his tough approach to China.”
Asked to support Trump’s arguments that China is paying for the multiple rounds of U.S. tariffs instead of U.S. companies, Kudlow said both countries “will suffer on this.”
“Fair enough,” he said, in response to being told of several analyses showing U.S. companies are bearing the tariff burden. “In fact, both sides will pay … in these things,” Kudlow asserted. “The Chinese will suffer GDP losses and so forth with respect to a diminishing export market and goods that they may need for their own … economy.”
“I think this is a risk we should and can take without damaging our economy in any appreciable way,” he said. “Maybe the toughest burden is on farmers and on the agriculture sector -- we get that. We’ve helped them before on lost exports; I think we had an authorization of $12 billion. We will do it again if we have to."
President Trump on Tuesday said “China will be pumping money into their system and probably reducing interest rates, as always, in order to make up for the business they are, and will be, losing.”
“...This money will come from the massive Tariffs being paid to the United States for allowing China, and others, to do business with us. The Farmers have been ‘forgotten’ for many years. Their time is now!” he said in a May 14 tweet.
https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/business-groups-lament-restoration-product-lines-new-section-301-list

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(ACC Mentioned) Basel a Potential Game Changer in Plastic Scrap Trade

May 15, 2019 | Plastics News

By Steve Toloken

A landmark United Nations treaty adopted May 10 limiting trade in plastic waste may, in the eyes of some industry groups, have unintended consequences that will hurt recycling.
That is the early assessment coming from plastics and recycling industry groups, after the U.N.'s Basel Convention ended two weeks of difficult talks in Switzerland by adopting legally binding limits on exports of some plastics scrap.
As the dust began to settle, industries, governments and environmental groups are taking stock.
U.N. officials, nongovernmental organizations and some recycling organizations said the new rules are overdue efforts needed to better control plastic waste. They argued that lack of regulations and mismanaged global scrap trade overwhelms developing countries, which do not have proper waste management controls, and that contributes to ocean pollution.
As well, U.N. officials noted public concerns and huge petition drives on social media urging the Basel negotiators to act.
"Plastic waste is acknowledged as one of the world's most pressing environmental issues, and the fact that this week close to 1 million people around the world signed a petition urging Basel Convention Parties to take action here in Geneva ... is a sign that public awareness and desire for action is high," said Rolph Payet, executive secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, a U.N. agency.
But some industry groups, while saying they strongly support the goals in the Basel talks of reducing plastic pollution, warned about unintended consequences.
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington said the new rules would "impair the trade of recyclable materials" and said they "ignore [the] fact that recycling works to help the environment."
"This effort, intended to be an international response to plastic pollution in marine environments, in reality will hamper the world's ability to recycle plastic material, creating an increased risk of pollution," ISRI said.
The new rules require that exporters of some plastic scrap file a notice of "prior informed consent," asking for permission to export the materials.
The changes classify some types of harder-to-recycle plastic scrap as hazardous waste under the Basel treaty, which was first adopted 30 years ago to regulate trade in waste and scrap materials.
Supporters say prior consent gives developing countries more tools to control the plastic waste that is shipped to their ports, but ISRI said it could create "administrative burdens" on countries that lack recycling capacity to export to those that do have capacity.
"It does little to fight the illicit trade and poor handling of end-of-life plastics that are the real cause of pollution around the world," ISRI said.
ISRI noted the new Basel language will not restrict trade in plastic scrap that meets ISRI specifications.
The Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling, which also represents recyclers, offered more support for the new rules. BIR noted projections for big increases in plastic production globally and suggested the Basel rules can help boost the "generally too low" rates for plastics recycling.
"Countries across the world worked together to create a step-change in the Basel Convention itself in order to alleviate the damage plastic does to life in the oceans and on land," BIR said. "Within less than a year, the Basel Convention has reacted to public concerns and provided meaningful change.
"People absolutely do not want to ingest plastics through drinking water or food, nor do people want to see plastic cause harm to wildlife," BIR said, noting that implementation of the rules will now be key.
The environmental group Ocean Conservancy, which works with the plastics industry on marine litter reduction projects, said the new rules send a message to wealthy nations to rely less on exporting plastic scrap and deal with it at home.
"The fact that wealthier nations have for so long simply shipped much of their plastic waste abroad shows just how much work we all have in front of us to close the loop and create a truly circular economy," the Washington-based group said. "We hope that by increasing plastic waste transparency with an eye toward safety and sustainability, the amendment will encourage communities everywhere to develop sustainable, locally appropriate solutions to manage their waste and keep plastics out of the ocean."
The American Chemistry Council, for its part, said the Basel decisions may unintentionally make some recycling more difficult.
"This is a complex area that deserves more nuanced consideration than it has received to date," ACC said. "Emerging trends and technologies will continue to change the nature of traded materials, and decisions this week may unintentionally make it more difficult for developing countries to properly manage their plastic waste."
It said the Basel rules, for example, could make it harder for lower-income nations to export their recyclable plastics to regions with new technologies and infrastructure. ACC has been advocating for changes in laws in the U.S. to support new chemical — or feedstock — recycling technologies.
But environmental groups supported the Basel changes, and criticized the U.S. government, along with ACC and ISRI, for what they said was its opposition to the changes during the negotiations.
In a statement, several environmental NGOs, including the Center for International Environmental Law, noted that the new rules come after China's decision to ban imports of most plastic scrap in 2018 resulted in a "huge influx" of plastic waste to other Asian countries.
They said a majority of countries around the world supported the new rules.
"[The Basel] decision demonstrates that countries are finally catching up with the urgency and magnitude of the plastic pollution issue and shows what ambitious international leadership looks like," said David Azoulay, environmental health director for the Washington-based CIEL.
"Plastic pollution in general, and plastic waste in particular, remain a major threat to people and the planet. But we are encouraged by the decision of the Basel Convention as we look to the future bold decisions that will be needed to tackle plastic pollution at its roots, starting with reducing production," Azoulay said.
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190515/NEWS/190519966/basel-a-potential-game-changer-in-plastic-scrap-trade

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Half of Americans Admit to Using a Swimming Pool as a Bath. Here’s Why You Shouldn’t

May 16, 2019 | Globalnews.ca

By Leslie Young

Nearly half of Americans say that they’ve rinsed off in a swimming pool after exercise, after yardwork, or even gone swimming as a substitute for a shower, according to a new poll.
Oh, and yes, people still pee in the pool.
The poll, conducted by Sachs Media Group on behalf of the Water Quality & Health Council, an industry association, is an annual look at Americans’ pool-related behaviours. It found that 40 per cent of people admitted to peeing in the pool as an adult, and half of people said they don’t shower before diving in.
Aside from just being gross, these unhygienic activities can affect the chemical balance of the pool, according to Chris Wiant, chair of the Water Quality & Health Council.
After exercising or hard work, he said, “You generate all kinds of organic matter. Could be sweat, it could be dirt, could be oil, grease, sunscreen, whatever.
“All those are the things that react to the disinfectant in the pool. So they may utilize all the disinfectant.”
There’s not an infinite amount of disinfectant in a pool, he said. It generally gets added gradually as the water is filtered. When chlorine contacts sunscreen or another contaminant like makeup, it changes. “It’s no longer able to disinfect but just becomes a contaminant itself in the water.”
When that happens, there’s less chlorine left over to tackle serious pathogens in the water.
“Let’s just assume your body, you’ve got sunscreen, you’ve got makeup, you’ve been sweating, your personal hygiene is not very good, all those things are going to combine with the chlorine,” he said. “So now if the next person gets in and actually has some kind of a bacterial or a viral disease, then those viruses can’t be killed by the chlorine because it’s already been consumed by the other material.”
That characteristic chemical pool smell? It’s actually from the chemicals created when chlorine reacts to foreign substances, according to the American Chemistry Council.
Pool pathogens are serious business. According to a study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 27,000 people got sick in the U.S. between 2000 and 2014 as a result of dirty pool water.
The top culprit was a protozoa called Cryptosporidium, which can cause diarrhea and is actually resistant to chlorine.
This highlights another of the survey’s findings: people don’t wait long enough after a diarrhea attack before getting in the water.
One in four Americans would hop in the pool just an hour after having diarrhea, according to the survey.
“It’s virtually impossible to clean away all the bacteria, viruses or spores that might be associated with that kind of an illness,” said Wiant.
“What we find is that some of those diseases are pretty persistent, that you can have residual bacteria even the next day or even several days later. So you go to the pool, and what happens is that will get washed off in the pool.”
Then, it could be passed on to someone else, he said. The CDC says that diarrhea could be passed on for up to two weeks after an illness.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5281054/pool-hygiene-safety-shower/

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(ACC Mentioned) Role of Mechanistic Data Prominent in US Hexavalent Chromium Debate

May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Andrew Turley

Industry has said the EPA’s IRIS programme should focus on mechanistic data and take care not to overstate the significance of some human studies, in its ongoing assessment of hexavalent chromium.
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of California have raised concerns that the assessment will include consideration of mechanistic data that is irrelevant.
The comments come in response to the systematic review "protocol" for the assessment of hexavalent chromium, published in March and followed by a public consultation. They suggest that the role of mechanistic data is likely to become a focal point for disagreement as the assessment progresses, as it has done for other IRIS assessments in recent years.
This type of data has, for example, become central to the discourse surrounding the "suspended" assessment of formaldehyde which, like hexavalent chromium, is associated with a large body of toxicological data.Industry
In a document submitted for a public consultation, Deborah Proctor at ToxStrategies recommends that the programme focus on:mechanistic data for toxicity in target tissue;the mode of action; andthe dose-response relationship.
Ms Proctor, a consultant to the American Chemistry Council and the Electric Power Research Institute, says there was a lack of information in the protocol about how mechanistic data and mode of action analysis would be used. "I believe that is the most important issue for public comment," she adds.
The Wood Preservative Science Council (WPSC) raises concerns about "over reliance on a subset of human epidemiology studies". The trade association, which represents manufacturers of waterborne wood preservatives, including chromated copper arsenate, warns that this would generate "over-conservative toxicity reference values, which will artificially inflate risk calculations and lead to unnecessary regulation".
The WPSC also accuses the IRIS programme of "seeking to minimise" mechanistic data "by asserting that only those mechanistic data germane to oral exposures and that support the animal and human data will be considered".University of California
Meanwhile, three scientists at the University of California say that the programme could actually end up considering more mechanistic data than it should. The protocol provides criteria for deprioritising mechanistic data. The group – which includes Tracey Woodruff, professor of reproductive health and the environment – says that studies meeting those criteria would be irrelevant and thus should be excluded rather than simply deprioritised.
Furthermore, the approach outlined in the protocol risks generating "erroneous conclusions" because it does not include evaluation of the quality of mechanistic data. "A mechanistic evidence base that is overall high risk of bias could lead to inappropriately downgrading the strength of the evidence derived from high-quality human or animal studies," the scientists say.Data types
In general, data for chemical risk assessment can be divided up according to three types: human, animal and mechanistic. Human data comes from epidemiological studies of large groups of exposed humans, who are often workers exposed to the target substance through work activities. Animal data comes from experimental laboratory studies involving so-called model species, typically rats or mice. Both human and animal studies are normally aimed at identifying a causative relationship between exposure and a hazard endpoint.
In contrast, mechanistic, or mode of action, studies are normally aimed at identifying the biological processes that are involved in any toxicity, as well as the sequence of events. Mechanistic data, therefore, can provide a challenge for those tasked with integrating multiple data streams for regulatory risk assessment of chemicals.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77585/role-of-mechanistic-data-prominent-in-us-hexavalent-chromium-debate

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(ACC Mentioned) National Academies Back Class-Based OFR Assessments in US

May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

A National Academies report has backed a class-based approach as the "only possible practical" one for addressing organohalogen flame retardants. But a committee of the independent institution says the substances cannot be treated as a single class for hazard assessment.
The finding comes as the culmination of a process requested by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to develop a hazard assessment scoping document to inform its consideration of a ban on nonpolymeric, additive organohalogen flame retardants (OFRs) from certain consumer products (see box).
The 15 May report, prepared by a National Academies committee formed in response to this request, acknowledged "conceptual advantages" to addressing the chemicals as a class. These include more efficient assessments, avoiding regrettable substitutions and moving away from a default presumption of no risk where there is an absence of data.
But the committee determined that although the characteristics OFRs share – including some physico-chemical properties and their use as flame retardants – could define them as a single class for some decision contexts, this is "not entirely workable for conducting a hazard or risk assessment under CPSC Regulations".
The scoping plan calls for assessing the substances under 14 subclasses
Instead, the scoping plan calls for assessing the substances under 14 subclasses, created on the basis of a combination of structural characteristics, physico-chemical properties and biology.
"The committee concludes that it is scientifically justifiable to assess OFRs by using a class approach and that extrapolation of hazard from subclass members on which there are some data to other members on which there are no data, is appropriate and likely necessary to address data deficiencies," it added.'Daunting' challenges
The authors recognise a number of challenges to applying the scoping plan’s class-based approach in a regulatory setting.
These include:the struggle for read-across to gain regulatory acceptance in the US;an absence of relevant data on many OFRs, which will result in the CPSC needing "to make difficult decisions" on what types and quantity of data it needs to support decisions;data generation that will be "extremely expensive and take decades to complete" if the CPSC decides that only traditional rodent studies are appropriate; anda scarcity of expertise available to conduct read-across and form classes.
But it said that although these challenges are "daunting, the alternative – individual assessments of hundreds of chemicals – is unrealistic".
"The only possible practical approach for a sect of chemicals as large as the OFRs is a class approach," it added.‘Thorough and thoughtful job’
The Green Science Policy Institute – one of the organisations behind the petition to ban OFRs – welcomed the committee’s support for a class-based approach to assessing substances.
"It takes years of research and advocacy to regulate one substance," Arlene Blum, GSP executive director, told Chemical Watch. "The class concept is needed to address broad sets of chemicals and avoid regrettable substitutions."
Seth Fernandez, GSP science and policy fellow, also lauded the report's emphasis on the use of predictive models and read-across – tools that have not been taken up by US regulators in the past but can "help the process go by more efficiently and smoothly".
In sum, Dr Blum said the committee did a "thoughtful and thorough job".
"Though maybe it is not what we had hoped – that they would recommend looking at OFRs as one class – I think their suggestions are well thought-out and can help move the discussion in a good direction."
'It is not scientifically accurate or appropriate to make broad conclusions or impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory approach,' Nafra
The American Chemistry Council’s North American Flame Retardant Alliance (Nafra), meanwhile, said the report’s finding that OFRs cannot be evaluated as a single class "confirms what scientists, regulators, and other authoritative bodies have already determined: it is not scientifically accurate or appropriate to make broad conclusions or impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory approach."
The organisation said that OFRs include a wide range of substances with differing characteristics, structures and intended uses, and that they have different physical, chemical and toxicological profiles.
But the committee’s recommendation to take a subclass approach, it said, is consistent with approaches taken by other chemical assessment agencies globally.Push to address OFRs as a class
A coalition of consumer advocates and medical associations petitioned the CPSC in 2015 to ban nonpolymeric, additive organohalogen flame retardants (OFRs) from children’s products, upholstered furniture, mattresses and plastic electronic casings.
The petitioners argued that the full class of substances is toxic and poses a risk to consumers.
CPSC staff recommended that the petition be denied, because OFRs constitute a broad class defined primarily by function rather than toxicity character or chemical feature.
Nevertheless, the agency’s commissioners voted in autumn 2017 to grant the petition. And this set in motion a process under which the agency must determine if a ban is warranted.
As a first step, the CPSC must determine if the substance’s use in a certain product may produce 'toxic' human health effects as defined by the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA). If it does, it then must conduct a risk assessment – taking into account dose-response relationships, bioavailability and exposure – to decide if it should be further classified as a 'hazardous substance' under the FHSA.
If this bar is met, then a rulemaking process can begin to prohibit the substance’s use in a product.
But because of the complexities of addressing a full class of chemicals, the CPSC tapped the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to develop a scoping plan for conducting a hazard assessment.
More specifically, the committee was tasked with surveying available hazard data, and to "identify one or more approaches to scientifically assess the potential for treating OFRs as a single class for purposes of hazard assessment".
The group held four meetings – including two open sessions where it heard from interested stakeholders – before publishing its final report.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77595/national-academies-back-class-based-ofr-assessments-in-us

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Congress Can’t Wait for EPA on Nonstick Chemicals: Tonko (2)

May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Congress must act now to require the EPA to use a range of regulations to clean up and regulate a large group of chemicals contaminating water systems across the U.S., Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) said during a May 15 hearing.
“We cannot wait for EPA to act,” said Tonko, chairman of the subcommittee on environment under the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The hearing discussed 13 bills designed to control a large group of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are used to make textiles, paper, food packaging materials, firefighting foam, and cookware with heat-, oil-, and water-resistant properties.
But the chemicals’ persistence in the environment, and the toxicity of at least two of the group, have spurred multimillion dollar toxic tort litigation across the country involving companies such as 3M Co., the Chemours Co., and DowDupont, which make or formerly made some of these chemicals.
The Safe Drinking Water Act needs to be updated, but that “cannot stop us from taking action on PFAS,” Tonko said. “PFAS issues are bigger than drinking water.”
Multiple Regulatory Tools
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), chairman of the full committee, agreed.
“Many people think of PFAS as solely a drinking water issue,” he said. “But all the PFAS in our drinking water came from industrial activity.”
Whatever legislative strategy that Congress pursues must address PFAS pollution at its source and prevent it from getting into the air, soil, and drinking water, Pallone said.
G. Tracy Mehan III, executive director of government affairs for the American Water Works Association (AWWA), and Brian Steglitz, water treatment services manager for the City of Ann Arbor, Mich., described ways the nation’s primary industrial chemicals law could help water utilities protect sources of drinking water.
The Toxic Substances Control Act authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to obtain information about PFAS chemicals in commerce, the quantities in which they’ve been produced, and where, Mehan said.
Knowing where discharges are occurring would allow watersheds to identify the most effective ways to protect sources of drinking water, Steglitz said.
But, “removing these chemicals at the end of the pipe is not the most cost-effective approach,” he said.
Preventing harmful new PFAS chemicals from entering commerce, as TSCA authorizes, would be more effective, Steglitz said.
Stopping industries that use PFAS already in commerce from discharging them into watersheds and making polluters cover the cost of abatement also would help, he said.
Legislation that would use regulatory authorities of TSCA, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), Clean Air Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act is needed, Erik D. Olson, health program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the committee.
Several Republicans, including House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Leader Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) the top Republican on the subcommittee, said they are willing to entertain PFAS legislation.
Liability and Litigation
Walden said that shoehorning PFAS controls into existing statutes may not be the best approach.
He urged legislators to think through unintended consequences some proposed bills could have.
For example, “there is merit to the use of Superfund authority to make federal funds available as well as compel reluctant parties, such as the Defense Department, to cleanup these sites,” Walden said.
But, “the idea of instantly making municipal governments and airports liable for every PFAS chemical, through no fault of their own, is concerning,” he said.
The cumulative effect of all the proposed statutory requirements could stifle EPA’s other activities, Walden said.
“States would face significant unfunded mandates, while foisting obligations on private parties who are currently unaware of potential liability,” he said.
The liability implications of some of the bills warrant attention, Mehan told Bloomberg Environment after the hearing.
If some PFAS compounds are designated as hazardous substances under CERCLA, wastewater utilities in particular could end up liable for generating, transporting, and disposing of biosolids as fertilizer, he said.
That concern isn’t a “deal breaker,” but needs to be addressed, Mehan said.
Walden said unless the legislation is thought through it could result in lengthy litigation.
Precedent for Class Treatment
Tonko told Bloomberg Environment that there’s interest in the Senate as well as the House in passing some type of PFAS legislation.
Issues lawmakers must consider include whether to focus on a cluster of bills or combine them into a single piece of legislation, he said.
A critical issue is whether those bills should address the entire group of PFAS chemicals as a class, Tonko said. That class consists of more than 4,700 chemicals, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
There is precedent to do so, Tonko and other subcommittee members said.
They referred to a provision the late Congressman John Dingell (D-Mich.) added to the original 1976 TSCA, directing the EPA to regulate a group of toxic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/congress-cant-wait-for-epa-on-nonstick-chemicals-tonko-says

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As PFAS Bills Stack Up, Lawmakers Debate Regulatory Schemes

May 16, 2019 | E&E Daily

By Ariana Figueroa

A bipartisan effort to address common industrial chemicals in drinking water sparked debate at a House hearing yesterday over whether the compounds should be regulated as a broad class or individually.
At issue for the Energy and Commerce subcommittee: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, that were once revered for their nonstick properties in cookware and use in food packaging and firefighting foam but are now linked to cancer and other health problems.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change's ranking member, urged Democrats not to rush to force EPA to set an enforceable drinking standard for an entire class of chemicals citing concerns of banning compounds that potentially pose no threat to human health.
"I am not a fan of rushing to install broad-based major changes to federal law at a time where high levels of anxiety exceed what we know," he said.
"This does not mean 'do nothing,'" he added, "rather, I believe we should not take shortcuts in the law while EPA is taking steps on solid, scientific data on regulatory decisions."
Jamie DeWitt, a toxicologist at East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine, told lawmakers it would be feasible to test and gather data on each of the more than 5,000 known PFAS.
"Employing a 'class' approach for all PFAS will be protective for vulnerable populations and the general public," she said in her opening statement. "It is not too late."
DeWitt, an associate professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, studies emerging PFAS found in the environment.
After the voluntary removal of two types of PFAS — perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) — levels of those chemicals decreased in the environment and in people's bodies, she said. DeWitt told lawmakers the replacement PFAS, such as GenX, need to be carefully studied.
"We need to learn more about these replacement compounds," she said, "and ask ourselves, 'Are these essential for the public good?'"
Subcommittee Chairman Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) asked DeWitt and another witness, Emily Marpe, a former resident of a community with high levels of PFAS, if the committee should look at regulating PFAS as a large class.
Both agreed and said regulating the chemicals as a broad class would be the best way to proceed with establishing an enforceable standard for drinking water.
"Human health should come first," Marpe said.
Lawmakers have introduced at least 20 bills addressing PFAS since January, ranging from establishing a national registry for people exposed to PFAS to requiring cleanups at federal facilities where the chemicals are found (E&E Daily, May 13).
The House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday approved a spending bill that would give EPA $18 million in new funding for PFAS studies (Greenwire, May 15).
Similarly, a Department of Defense spending bill released Tuesday by House appropriators would set aside $13 million for studying PFOA and PFOS (Greenwire, May 14).
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/05/16/stories/1060340701

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Republicans Detail Concerns Over Bipartisan PFAS Bills, Seek EPA Input

May 15, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Suzanne Yohannan

House Republicans are raising concerns that a suite of pending bills, many bipartisan, that seek to address contamination stemming from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) could limit EPA's ability to prioritize risks and short-circuit existing review processes and are calling on Democrats to allow the agency to provide further input.
At a May 15 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's environment and climate subcommittee, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), the panel's ranking Republican, warned that if supporters of the bills are serious about the legislation, the bills “need a full and fair hearing with a complete legislative history and record."
He added EPA should be brought before the subcommittee to answer questions on the technical aspects of the legislation.
Shimkus' concerns were among a series of issues that lawmakers and witnesses raised at the hearing, including some of the bills' plans to regulate PFAS as a class; that any regulation could impose unfunded mandates on states and increased liability for responsible parties; and that some of the measures may short-circuit EPA's process.
Such concerns suggest that Senate Republicans are unlikely to act quickly on companion measures even if House Democrats move quickly.
The pending bills would address PFAS through a variety of laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), Superfund law, Toxic Substances Control Act and the Clean Air Act, and would also provide funding support to address the contamination.
For example, they require EPA to develop a primary drinking water regulation for total PFAS within two years, create an EPA grant program to pay for capital costs for treating PFAS in drinking water across water systems, create a trust fund using industry user fees to pay for water treatment, require PFAS to be listed as a hazardous air pollutant and as a Superfund hazardous substance.
The legislation would also bar the manufacture of new PFAS, and require health testing and reporting on health impacts from manufacturers, among other measures.
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has told colleagues she supports taking action on PFAS, it is unclear whether House leaders plan to push the bills separately or as one or more packages.
Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), chairman of the environment panel, told Inside EPA after the hearing that a decision on whether to move ahead on stand-alone measures or a package will be determined after examining the input the panel received through the hearing.
As to whether the bills, if passed in the House, are likely to have any success in the Senate, Tonko said he believes the public's concerns on this issue are “having a major impact” on these issues, and that will likely ripple into the Senate. “So we're hopeful that we can do a bicameral response.”
Chemical Class
While many of the bills have bipartisan co-sponsors -- primarily from members whose states and districts have evidence of PFAS contamination of drinking water or groundwater -- the legislative hearing showcased pushback that such legislation is likely to face from some GOP members and industry.
For example, Shimkus cautioned that lawmakers cannot back “the use of good science or public input” only when they know that will lead to endorsing policy solutions they favor -- something that was a major principle in amending TSCA.
“I think we ought to be real careful [of using legislative fiat to ban] things which we may or may not know are harmful,” he said. He added that he does not question that there are probably some PFAS categories that are harmful, “but to threaten” the 3,000 to 5,000 list of PFAS is not in line with the scientific approach lawmakers agreed to on TSCA.
Nonetheless, Shimkus said he may be willing to support some of the legislation.
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), the full committee's ranking member, said he is not sure “the existing body of environmental law is the best way to approach the PFAS contamination conundrum.” But he also warned the legislation could mean significant unfunded mandates for states, and obligations on private parties for liability -- such as farmers using biosolids from wastewater treatment facilities.
“All of this is likely to result in litigation to prevent or prolong the situation, rather than move to promptly address contamination,” he said.
“As currently constituted, the language in the bills before us presents an enormous, sweeping response to the PFAS chemical class,” he said.
Whether PFAS is treated and regulated as a class or not “will be the central question” as lawmakers move forward with legislation, Tonko remarked during the hearing. When asked by Inside EPA about that sticking point, he acknowledged there are “disagreements” on that, but noted there was a “strong statement” made at the hearing that the chemicals contain several of the same elements and characteristics.
He noted the precedent previously set to put chemicals into a category class -- for instance with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). “It's up to us now to determine if we see this as such,” he added.
Witnesses at the hearing were divided on whether the class of thousands of chemicals should be regulated as one, with Natural Resources Defense Council drinking water expert Erik Olson and East Carolina University toxicology professor Jamie DeWitt advocating for it. Olson said it was “crucial” to treat them as a class, noting the carbon-fluorine bond means they share similar properties, and second, if they are regulated individually, then it presents a “whack-a-mole” problem where companies simply shift to new PFAS if older versions become regulated.
He also suggested that EPA could issue a drinking water treatment technique rule that calls for using a technology that will remove the full class, rather than setting maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for thousands of chemicals.
But Jane Luxton, an industry attorney, and Tracy Mehan, a former EPA water chief who is executive director for government affairs at the American Water Works Association, argued treating the chemicals as a class would risk losing the focus on the highest priority chemicals and would present practical and technical issues.
Luxton also noted there are differences among compounds that make a difference in uptake and health effects.
TRI Releases
Referring to the challenge of regulating as a class, Tonko also asked about reporting releases under the Toxic Release Inventory, questioning if it would be a challenge to identify each PFAS release. Olson responded that there will likely be some challenges, but suggested an approach that would focus on specific chemicals while also allowing for a full general reporting.
Tonko also asked about the speed at which EPA would likely apply TSCA to PFAS -- for instance to require testing, banning or comprehensive regulation of the chemicals. Olson said NRDC is concerned about how slow it would be if Congress does not intervene, and said a class-oriented approach under TSCA is needed.
A drinking water standard has been a priority for some lawmakers as communities across the country are demanding cleanup of their drinking water. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the full committee chairman, asked how H.R. 2377 -- which would set a deadline for EPA to create a national drinking water standard for total PFAS -- could protect communities in states that lack drinking water standards and help drive Superfund cleanups.
Olson said the problem is some states are not moving forward with drinking water standards, so ideally, strong, health-protective national standards are needed. But, he said the underlying 1996-amended SDWA “makes it virtually impossible to set strong, good standards” of unregulated contaminants. For Superfund cleanups, a drinking water standard would drive the cleanup, he noted.
And Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), a co-sponsor of some PFAS bills, suggested a narrower measure that may avoid industry opposition. He said he hoped some of the PFAS bills could be added to infrastructure legislation, and asked Luxton to comment on H.R. 2626, which would give EPA one year to decide whether to list “well-characterized” PFAS as a hazardous substance under Superfund law.
Luxton replied that it is a “constructive suggestion,” while noting that the term “well-characterized” should be defined, or be given some criteria. The idea of trying to focus on those PFAS that are well-characterized allows for prioritization of resources, she said.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/republicans-detail-concerns-over-bipartisan-pfas-bills-seek-epa-input

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Lawmakers at Odds over How to Tackle Spread of Harmful Chemicals in Water

May 15, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Rebecca Beitsch

House lawmakers on Wednesday reviewed over a dozen pieces of legislation regarding the spread of harmful nonstick chemicals in drinking water, exposing the lack of agreement on how to deal with the problem.
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on energy and climate change discussed 13 different approaches to address the growing issue of the chemicals, technically known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The chemicals are used on everything from Teflon pans, food packaging and stain-resistant fabrics, and as they break down they enter the water supply.
The scope of the problem is becoming clearer as a growing number of states — currently 43 — have some sort of PFAS contamination. But it's less clear how the government should address the problem.
Lawmakers on Wednesday said they were conflicted about how to regulate a class of chemicals that includes almost 5,000 different varieties.
“These chemicals are everywhere—in our environment and in our bodies, with new communities affected all the time,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “All the PFAS in our drinking supply came from industrial activity. They will keep showing up in our drinking water sources if we continue to produce and use thousands of different PFAS chemicals.”
There is bipartisan support for addressing PFAS in some way, and the meeting attracted members from both sides of aisle who aren’t on the subcommittee but dropped in to ask questions.
But sticking points quickly arose over whether Congress should take action before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whether legislation should address the most common forms of PFAS or broadly tackle its thousands of variants, and whether legislation should so heavily focus on water when pollution stems from the creation of a number of everyday products.
“EPA has given us little reason for confidence that they will act with the urgency that impacted communities know is needed,” said subcommittee chairman Paul Tonko (D-N.Y), lamenting that it would be years before the agency would be able to set a drinking water standard. “One thing is clear: we cannot wait for EPA to act.”
The EPA has been under pressure to set a drinking water standard for PFAS after several states have done so in the absence of agency action. The agency says it will determine by the end of the year whether it will undertake setting such a level.
Several committee Republicans shared Tonko's view asked why EPA was not present at the hearing. Tonko said they were invited but declined due to scheduling conflicts.
Michael Abboud, an EPA spokesman, said the agency was unable to prepare for the hearing in time but plans to return for a June hearing on PFAS.
Among the legislation reviewed by the committee are bills that would require EPA to set a drinking water standard for PFAS, allow Superfund cleanup funds to be used to deal with PFAS contamination, a ban on new PFAS chemicals, and another to provide funding to clean up water that is already contaminated.
Some Republicans expressed concern over acting before EPA, particularly if Congressional action included wiping out uses of thousands of types of PFAS before the agency could review the health impacts of many of the lesser-studied forms as well as alternatives on the market.
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said the bills, mainly introduced by Democrats, present an “enormous, sweeping response” to all forms of PFAS and would stifle EPA action and likely spur some lawsuits.
“States would face significant unfunded mandates, while foisting obligations on private parties who are currently unaware of potential liability – like farmers using biosolids from wastewater treatment facility to improve soil health,” Walden said. “All of this is likely to result in litigation to prevent or prolong the situation, rather than move to promptly address contamination.”
Some panelists shared that view.
“I think there would be litigation—there’s no question, and to just sort of impose blanket bans is highly risky,” said Jane C. Luxton, a lawyer at Lewis Brisbois and former general counsel to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the George W. Bush administration.
Luxton said dealing with all classes of PFAS at once could dilute the effort to deal with some of the most-studied and riskiest forms.
But others argued that if Congress acts too narrowly now, they run the risk of leaving thousands of dangerous chemicals on the market.
“If we don’t regulate them as a class, we’re going to be on this treadmill of trying to regulate one at a time and we’ll never get off of it,” said Erik D. Olson, the health program director and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/443877-house-ec-agrees-pfas-contamination-is-a-problem-but-not-how-to

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Jury Win for Pep Boys Upheld in Customer Asbestos Exposure Suit

May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Peter Hayes

Pep Boys successfully defended its trial win in a case alleging it negligently sold asbestos-containing auto parts to a California couple who died of mesothelioma.
A jury verdict in favor of the auto parts retailer, the full name of which is Pep Boys—Manny, Moe & Jack, will stand in a wrongful death action brought by the children of Philip and Febi Mettias, the California Court of Appeals said in an unpublished May 14 ruling.
The jury was sufficiently instructed on what it would have to find to hold Pep Boys liable for negligence as a supplier of Bendix asbestos-containing brake pads and shoes. Philip allegedly worked with the products as he repaired the family’s car.
The family wasn’t entitled to an additional jury instruction on general negligence based on a theory that Philip may also have been exposed to asbestos in the Pep Boys’ store that migrated into the retail area from the service bays, the court said.
The only viable theory of negligence was that Pep Boys violated its duty of due care as a supplier of the Bendix brakes, the court said.
The complaint alleged that, from 1987 through 1989, Philip performed brake repairs on the family’s car using replacement asbestos-containing Bendix brakes purchased at Pep Boys.
Febi was allegedly exposed to asbestos fibers while laundering Philip’s clothes and rags after he did the brake repairs, the court said.
Judge Thomas L. Willhite Jr. wrote the opinion, joined by Judges Nora M. Manella and Audrey B. Collins.
Farrise Law Firm represented the Mettias children.
Dentons US represented Pep Boys.
The case is Mettias v. Pep Boys Manny, Moe & Jack of Cal., 2019 BL 174430, Cal. Ct. App., 2d Dist., No. B287831, unpublished 5/14/19.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/jury-win-for-pep-boys-upheld-in-customer-asbestos-exposure-suit

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Amazon Strengthens Enforcement Against Lead, Cadmium in Children’s Products

May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Leigh Stringer

Online retailer Amazon will require those selling children’s school supplies and jewellery on its website to submit lab reports that confirm the products are compliant with US state and federal limits for lead and cadmium.
The commitment – which will apply in the US – was agreed with Washington State's Office of the Attorney General which, following an investigation, found that children’s school supplies and jewellery purchased on amazon.com contained illegal levels of the substances.
Lead and cadmium are used to intensify certain colours of a coating, which can be applied to a number of products. However, lead has for many years been identified for its negative effects on brain function and the nervous system, while cadmium has been identified as a carcinogen and affects the respiratory system.
According to the Attorney General, Amazon agreed to the commitment to avoid any legal action taken by the state on the back of the investigation results.
Part of the agreement requires the company to discontinue the sale of any non-compliant products from the two categories. And if the Attorney General or Washington Department of Ecology makes Amazon aware of any non-compliant products, the company must remove them from its online marketplace within two business days.
Since 2009, children's products sold or manufactured in Washington State cannot contain more than 90ppm of lead or 40ppm of cadmium. At the federal level, children’s products must not contain more than 100ppm of lead in the primary material and 90ppm in surface coatings. However, there are no mandatory US federal limits in place for cadmium in children’s jewellery and school supplies.Testing
The Attorney General’s Office and the Washington State Department of Ecology carried out product tests in 2017 and 2018 and found that 51, marketed to children younger than 12, exceeded the limits.
Some sellers’ pencil pouches had component parts containing around 8,500ppm of lead. In one test, a pencil pouch contained more than 35 times the legal limit of lead and almost 29 times the limit of cadmium.
The Attorney General said that the non-compliant products came from China and were sold by third-parties.
It added that Amazon performed its own tests on several products and confirmed that the levels were higher than those allowed by state and federal laws. Amazon told Chemical Watch that it "works closely with our selling partners, and drives continuous improvement to our processes, to verify that the school supplies and children’s jewellery in our store are safe."
"We welcome ongoing collaboration with the Attorney General and other agencies to promote customer safety," it added.
Products found to exceed the legal limits include:pencil pouches;backpacks;lunchboxes;book covers;bracelets; andnecklaces.Improvements
After being made aware of the findings, Amazon contacted the purchasers in early 2019, encouraged them to dispose of the products, and provided more than $200,000 in refunds.
Last year, Amazon launched a chemicals policy, which includes its first restricted substance list (RSL) and plans for new transparency efforts. Lead and cadmium are not listed on the company's RSL.
And since March, it has enforced a ban on the listing and sale of paint stripper products containing the solvents methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP).
In a joint statement, Laurie Valeriano, executive director of NGO Toxic-Free Future and Mike Schade, Mind the Store campaign director at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, said this new enforcement action "clearly demonstrates the urgency for expansion and improvements to Amazon’s chemicals policy."
"[It] shouldn’t just stop with lead and cadmium, or just these product categories, because far too many products contain harmful chemicals that can impact children’s health," the statement says.
Last week, Washington State adopted a law to regulate the use of chemicals in products, which its supporters say is the strongest such policy in the nation.
Ms Valeriano and Mr Schade said the law provides a "roadmap of chemicals that retailers like Amazon should follow."
https://chemicalwatch.com/77573/amazon-strengthens-enforcement-against-lead-cadmium-in-childrens-products

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US Toxics Agency Releases Draft Profiles

May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has released for public comment draft toxicological profiles for several substances.
These include:lead;2-butanone, also known as methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), a common industrial solvent;1,2-diphenylhydrazine, a colourless, crystalline solid previously used as an intermediate in some pharmaceuticals and in dye manufacturing; and1,2,3-trichloropropane, which is primarily used in the production of other chemicals but was previously used as a solvent and extractive agent.
ATSDR profiles characterise the toxicology and adverse health impacts posed by certain chemicals of concern. The agency, which sits under the Department of Health and Human Services, intends to protect communities from the effects of toxic substances by investigating emerging environmental health threats.
Responses to the drafts profiles will be accepted until 7 August.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77602/us-toxics-agency-releases-draft-profiles

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EU Adopts Opinion on Safety of Fragrance Ingredient

May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

The EU’s Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) has adopted an Opinion on the fragrance ingredient, butylphenyl methylpropional (p-BMHCA).

The committee concluded that p-BMHCA with alpha-tocopherol is safe at 200ppm when used, on an individual product basis, as a fragrance ingredient in different cosmetic leave-on and rinse-off type products at the concentration limits proposed by the International Fragrance Association (Ifra).
However, it said the substance cannot be considered safe at the proposed concentrations under an aggregated exposure scenario, that is, if using different product types together.

In March 2017, Ifra proposed the following maximum concentrations for p-BMHCA:1.42% for hydroalcoholic-based fragrances (for example, eau de toilette, perfume, aftershave, cologne);0.09% for deodorants;0.04% for make-up products (for example, eye make-up, make-up remover, liquid foundation, mascara, eyeliner);0.05% for face cream;0.05% for hand cream;0.06% for body lotion;0.04% for hair styling products; and0.1% for bath cleansing products (for example, soaps, shower gel, rinse-off conditioner, shampoo).
In a previous Opinion, the committee said that it could not conclude on the substance's safety.

Meanwhile, the European Commission has asked the SCCS to provide a Opinion on the safety of zinc pyrithione when used as an anti-dandruff agent in rinse-off hair products, up to a maximum concentration of 1%.
The deadline for the determination is October.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77589/eu-adopts-opinion-on-safety-of-fragrance-ingredient

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Cosmetics Europe Project Pushes on with Internal TTC Concept

May 16, 2019 | Chemical Watch

By Emma Davies

An industry-funded project is close to building a database of 'internal' thresholds of toxicological concern (iTTCs) for chemicals with limited toxicological data.
Industry has long used TTCs for chemicals with data gaps, claiming a low probability of adverse effects below the thresholds.
TTCs are derived using no-observed adverse effect levels (Noaels), based on animal oral toxicity data. The iTTC represents internal chemical exposures based on blood concentrations and is a "logical next step" for the TTC, according to the team working on a project funded by Cosmetics Europe.
The researchers predict that the internal thresholds could be used to help refine exposure levels for dermal exposures, metabolism-based structure-activity relationships and in vitro assays.
An iTTC database would also allow measured human blood concentrations of certain chemicals to be compared with iTTC thresholds, they add.
The iTTC would be a "second tier" to existing TTCs and would have "broad applicability across industrial chemicals", according to Corie Ellison, a toxicologist at Procter & Gamble, who presented at the Society of Toxicology's annual meeting in Baltimore, US.
The researchers began by identifying an existing TTC dataset of over 1,200 chemicals with Noaels, homing in on three data sources: a 'landmark' paper and database from the US Research Institute for Fragrance Materials and the Cosmos database.
For chemicals with sufficient data, the team is using physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling to convert external Noael doses to internal exposure, according to Dr Ellison.Plugging data gaps
But many of the chemicals are data-poor. The team's literature search showed that only 10% of the chemicals have in vivo pharmacokinetic (PK) data, while just 5% come with in vitro metabolic data.
The team now needs in vitro absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) data for representative data-poor chemicals identified by chemical mapping. The goal is for the final iTTC chemical dataset to cover a "broad chemical and PK space", said Dr Ellison.
The project has started to generate in vitro permeability data and will soon begin collecting in vitrometabolism data, he added.
It is funded as part of the Cosmetics Europe Long Range Science Strategy (LRSS) research programme, which runs until next year. The iTTC project team includes researchers from industry and academe, as well as from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, the US EPA and the US National Institutes of Health.
The iTTC project's working group held its first workshop in April 2017. The outcomes were recently described in a journal article published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77586/cosmetics-europe-project-pushes-on-with-internal-ttc-concept

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Energy News

U.S.-China Trade Dispute Seen Complicating Domestic LNG Export Growth

May 15, 2019 | Natural Gas Intelligence

By Leticia Gonzales

An escalating trade war between the United States and China will put U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters at a disadvantage and threatens to stall not-yet-sanctioned projects, according to analysts.
Access to full text unavailable. Subscription required.
Story can be found here: https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/118384-us-china-trade-dispute-seen-complicating-domestic-lng-export-growth

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China LNG Buyers Seek to Swap U.S. Cargoes After Fresh Tariffs

May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Stephen Stapczynski

Liquefied natural gas buyers in China are seeking to swap their U.S. shipments for cargoes from other nations after Beijing pledged to raise tariffs amid a deepening trade dispute, according to traders with knowledge of the situation.
Some Chinese LNG buyers have approached suppliers about trading the U.S. cargoes, which they’ve already committed to buy, for shipments from non-tariff nations, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public. While China’s imports of American gas have dropped since it slapped a 10% duty on the fuel in September, pressure is mounting to completely avoid the cargoes after Beijing said May 13 it would boost the tariff to 25% starting June 1.
The trade war has derailed what should be a natural partnership, as the U.S. vies to become the world’s top exporter of LNG and China is on track to become the largest buyer. While cheap shale gas had helped U.S. exporters undercut other sellers that are nearer to China, the bigger tariff makes American LNG uncompetitive and has discouraged long-term partnerships.
China has imported four LNG cargoes from the U.S. so far this year, down about 80% from the same period last year, according to vessel tracking data. That compares with a 21% jump in total LNG imports during the first quarter.
Almost all of China’s imports of U.S. LNG are received at terminals owned and operated by state giants China National Petroleum Corp., China National Offshore Oil Corp. and Sinopec Group. The companies are China’s biggest LNG buyers, and their terminals are also accessible to smaller independent buyers, including ENN Group and Beijing Gas Group.
CNPC, the parent company of PetroChina Co., is the only Chinese firm with a long-term off-take agreement from a U.S. project. CNOOC has a long-term contract with Total SA, which sources cargoes from the U.S.
None of the companies replied to requests for comment.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/china-lng-buyers-seek-to-swap-u-s-cargoes-after-fresh-tariffs

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Plastics Industry on Track to Burn Through 14% of World’s Remaining Carbon Budget: New Report

May 15, 2019 | DeSmog (Blog)

By Sharon Kelly

The plastics industry plays a major — and growing — role in climate change, according to a report published today by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
By 2050, making and disposing of plastics could be responsible for a cumulative 56 gigatons of carbon, the report found, up to 14 percent of the world's remaining carbon budget.
In 2019, the plastics industry is on track to release as much greenhouse gas pollution as 189 new coal-fired power plants running year-round, the report found — and the industry plans to expand so rapidly that by 2030, it will create 1.34 gigatons of climate-changing emissions a year, equal to 295 coal plants.
It’s an expansion that, in the United States, is largely driven by the shale gas rush unleashed by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The petrochemical expansion also comes over the same period of time that international plans to reduce climate change call for rapid reductions in greenhouse gases from all sources — transportation, electricity, and industry.
“Humanity has less than twelve years to cut global greenhouse emissions in half and just three decades to eliminate them almost entirely,” said Carroll Muffett, president of CIEL, citing UN figures. “It has long been clear that plastic threatens the global environment and puts human health at risk. This report demonstrates that plastic, like the rest of the fossil economy, is putting the climate at risk as well.”
“If growth trends continue,” the report concludes, “plastic will account for 20 percent of global oil consumption by 2050.”
The new report, co-authored by Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), 5 Gyres, and Break Free From Plastic, looks at how plastic production carries major impacts for the climate as it goes from raw materials tapped by the fossil fuel industries all the way through its ultimate disposal or breakdown in the environment.From Wellhead to Trash Heap
The new report finds climate problems at each stage.
“The story of plastic’s contribution to climate change really begins at the wellhead,” said Matt Kelso, a manager at FracTracker Alliance, which contributed to the report, “and we can therefore say that a portion of carbon emissions from oil and gas production is attributable to the creation of plastics.”
Transforming those raw material into plastic requires massive amounts of energy. On average, the report found, making one ton of plastic created 1.89 metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution.
There are over 300 new petrochemical projects underway in the U.S. alone, most of which will make plastic or plastic additives. “Plastic refining is among the most greenhouse gas-intensive industries in the manufacturing sector — and the fastest growing,” the report finds.
But plastic’s climate impacts don’t end there.
Only 9 percent of plastic is recycled — and while some is landfilled, a growing percentage is burned, either for disposal or for fuel. “Waste incineration, also referred to as Waste-to-Energy, is the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions from plastic waste management, even after considering the electricity that can be generated during the process,” said Doun Moon, a research associate with report co-author GAIA.
The report also describes surprising evidence of how plastic trash in the environment affects the climate. Not only can plastic emit measurable amounts of greenhouse gases as it degrades, but also, the report says, “a small but growing body of research suggests plastic discarded in the environment may be disrupting the ocean’s natural ability to absorb and sequester carbon dioxide.”
All told, the report highlights the growing role that plastic production plays in changing the world’s climate.
“At every moment that we possibly can, we are making conservative, lower-bound estimates,” said lead author Steven Feit. “Setting aside for the moment the health impacts, this massive expansion is really dangerous from a climate perspective.”Does a 'Plastic Soup' Ocean Stop Acting as a Carbon Sink?
Submariner Victor Vescovo recently broke deep sea dive records by touching the bottom of the Mariana Trench at a depth of over 35,850 feet.
There, he found a piece of plastic trash amid multiple previously undiscovered species.
It’s just one sign of how much plastic pollution the world's oceans now contain.
“Every year, more than eight million tonnes of harmful plastic waste end up in the ocean,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a May 14 speech in Fuji. “According to one recent study, plastic could outweigh fish in our seas by 2050.”
The CIEL report also highlights how plastic contributes to climate change long after it’s made — and that’s not only when plastic is burned in incinerators.
For one thing, the report notes, recent research reveals that exposing plastic trash to light triggers the release of greenhouse gases from the plastic itself as it breaks down. Polyethylene plastic — the kind that’s mostly used for single-use plastic items — releases methane, ethane, propylene, and ethylene gases.
“This unexpected discovery shows that the degradation and breakdown of plastic represents a previously unrecognized source of greenhouse gases that are expected to increase, especially as more plastic is produced and accumulated in the environment,” CIEL wrote.
But that’s not the only surprising way that plastic — particularly plastic trash that finds its way to the ocean — contributes to climate change.
The oceans have soaked up between 30 and 50 percent of all the carbon dioxide pollution that people have produced since the dawn of the industrial era, the report says.
But there are signs that plastic pollution may be causing a breakdown in the ocean’s ability to act as a carbon sink.
“Phytoplankton take sunlight and they pull in carbon dioxide and they turn it into food, and then get eaten by zooplankton — that’s step one of how the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide,” explained Feit. “There’s evidence mounting that microplastics are interfering with the zooplankton and that chain.”
Plankton plays a little-understood but important role in the ways that the ocean absorbs carbon. For example, a tiny kind of fish known as a lanternfish represent, by mass, half of the fish in the ocean.
Lanternfish eat carbon-rich zooplankton near the sea’s surface and their poop sinks towards the seafloor, keeping that carbon locked away far from the air we breathe. A 2013 study found that lanternfish and similar species sank 30 million tons of carbon a year in the waters off the U.S. West Coast alone.
But as plastic debris breaks down into smaller and smaller bits in the ocean, lanternfish can wind up eating plastic instead of plankton, causing the fish to suffer direct physical harm and chemical poisoning, the LA Times reported in 2017.
And that’s affecting just one of the ways that plankton and the marine food chain directly reduce climate change.
“That [marine food chain] process is 50 percent of the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon,” Feit said.
“Research into these impacts is still in its infancy,” the report concludes, “but early indications that plastic pollution may interfere with the largest natural carbon sink on the planet should be cause for immediate attention and serious concern.”
Plastic Appalachia
On shore, the plastic industry has major expansion plans worldwide — and particularly in the U.S.
Plastic is currently responsible for less annual pollution than cement, which in 2016 produced 2.2 gigatons of CO2, accordingto the International Energy Agency — but the plastics industry is poised to grow quickly, CIEL found.
“Industrial sources comprised 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2014,” the CIEL report said. “Just four sectors — steel, plastic, cement, and aluminum — account for fully three quarters of these emissions. Of the four sectors, plastic is witnessing the most rapid and sustained growth, and it is projected to have the largest growth in emissions under business-as-usual scenarios.”
“Current plans for rapid expansion of production capacity are concentrated in the United States, China, and the Middle East, but also include expansions of petrochemical capacity in Europe and South America,” the report found.
“In an era when we need to be fighting climate change and reducing emissions, the plastics industry is planning to expand,” said Feit. “In the United States, this is driven by shale gas.”
Permits for Shell’s Pennsylvania ethane cracker, a massive plastics plant currently under construction, allow it to release 2.25 million tons of greenhouse gases a year.
That means running Shell’s one plastic-making cracker facility for a year could cause more climate-changing pollution than replacing every passenger car registered in Pittsburgh with 2019’s most gas-guzzling full-size SUV, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk 4WD, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clocks in at 13 miles per gallon.
And that’s just the 2.25 million tons of direct emissions from one new plastics plant. Today’s report finds that full life-cycle emissions from plastic production worldwide are slated to grow from over 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to over 1,340 million metric tons, over 200 times the climate-changing pollution from Shell’s Pennsylvania plant.
“Of 128 existing or potential facilities that are part of a vast buildout of the petroleum and petrochemical industry in the Ohio River Valley, 38 have data available on permitted emissions increases,” the report found, adding that those 38 projects would add roughly 22 million tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year, about 10 times the impact of the Shell plant alone.
And that, in turn, means that policy-makers in Appalachia — as well as those on the Gulf Coast — face important decisions on the horizon.
“This is not something that can be just easily turned around once those facilities are built,” said Feit. “Really the surest solution to dealing with the problem of plastics and climate is to reduce plastic production, to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, to move towards eliminating the use of single-use plastics and non-essential plastics.”
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/15/plastics-industry-climate-change-emissions-oceans-ciel-report

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House to Use Spending Bill to Hit Brakes on Offshore Drilling

May 15, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By David Schultz

A Democratic bill in the House of Representatives aims to be the final nail in the coffin for an Interior Department plan to open up huge swaths of coastline to offshore drilling.
The bill provides funding to the department, as well as the EPA and other agencies, for fiscal 2020. A House Appropriations subcommittee approved the bill on a voice vote May 15.
In addition to giving Interior more than $13 billion, an increase of nearly 6.5% over its current budget, the annual spending bill would also prohibit the Trump administration from approving or pre-approving any offshore drilling leases that were proposed in a draft drilling plan that Interior released last year.
Republicans on the subcommittee said they don’t support the bill’s $37.28 billion price tag, nearly 5% more than last year’s Republican-drafted bill. Also, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the top Republican on the full committee, said the offshore drilling provision would be hard for her party to swallow.
“It would be difficult,” she told Bloomberg Environment.
Next Steps
The next step for the annual spending bill is the full committee and then the House floor. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the chair of the full committee, told reporters that she plans to schedule bills approved in subcommittee to go to the full committee the following week.
If and when this bill passes the House floor, the Republican-controlled Senate will then weigh in with its own funding and policy priorities.
If the two chambers can’t come to an agreement that the president is willing to sign before the end of September, then Interior, EPA, and the other agencies covered in this bill would partially shut down.
Shaky Ground
This offshore drilling proposal was already on politically shaky ground even before Democrats introduced their spending bill. Coastal lawmakers from both parties criticized former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke when he first floated the proposal in early 2018.
Current Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, Zinke’s successor, told the House Appropriations subcommittee last week it would be extremely unlikely that he would move forward with any offshore drilling leases over the objections of the state in which the drilling would take place. He also told the subcommittee he has no plans to finalize Zinke’s drilling plan in the near future.
“A plan is not imminent at this time,” Bernhardt said. “There will not be a plan without a lot of comment. I will not surprise you with a plan.”
Big Budget Boost
In addition to boosting Interior’s budget, the spending bill would also give the Environmental Protection Agency more than $9.5 billion, its second-largest budget in the agency’s five-decade existence.
That figure is $3.42 billion above President Donald Trump’s request. It’s also a near-record for an agency that has only crossed the $10 billion mark once—in fiscal 2010 under President Barack Obama and with Democrats holding both the House and Senate.
EPA spending over the last decade has hovered around $8 billion annually, though the current year spending bill that ended a nearly monthlong government shutdown in January raised its funding to $8.849 billion, its biggest budget in a decade.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/house-to-use-spending-bill-to-hit-brakes-on-offshore-drilling

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N.Y. Denies Permit for Shale Expansion Project

May 16, 2019 | AP (In E&E Energywire)

State environmental regulators yesterday denied a water quality permit for a 24-mile underwater pipeline from New Jersey to Queens that backers say is crucial for meeting rising demand for natural gas in New York City and Long Island.
The Northeast Supply Enhancement project would expand the Transco pipeline, which extends from Texas to the Northeast coast. It would allow National Grid to bring natural gas from Pennsylvania's shale gas fields to the metropolitan region.
The pipeline is opposed by environmental groups who say it threatens marine life and extends reliance on fossil fuels rather than renewable energy sources.
In denying the permit, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said the project "fails to meet New York State's rigorous water quality standards" and "would cause impacts to habitats due to the disturbance of shellfish beds and other benthic resources."
Chris Stockton, a spokesman for the pipeline developer, Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Williams Partners, said the DEC "raised a minor technical issue" with its application for water quality certification.
"Our team will be evaluating the issue and resubmitting the application quickly," Stockton said. "We are confident that we can be responsive to this technical concern, meet our customer's in-service date and avoid a moratorium that would have a devastating impact on the regional economy and environment."
New Jersey regulators must also decide on the project by June 5.
The pipeline was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on May 3. National Grid says the project is crucial because existing pipeline infrastructure is at capacity and natural gas demand is projected to rise 10% in the next decade in the New York City region.
A report by the environmental group 350.org claims the need for a pipeline can be avoided by reducing fossil fuel demand through energy efficiency measures and installation of heat pumps in homes and small apartment buildings.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned fracking for natural gas in the state in 2014. Since then, anti-fracking activists have targeted pipelines and other natural gas infrastructure, saying it makes no sense to support increased use of fossil fuels when the state is committed to switching to renewable energy.
In his 2019 executive budget, Cuomo mandated that 70% of the state's electricity come from renewable energy by 2030 and a 100% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2040.
The Natural Resources Defense Council called the DEC decision a "victory for clean water, marine life, communities and people's health across the state."
"Instead of further locking in our reliance on fossil fuels, New York is rightly capturing the power of the wind and the sun and investing in a local clean energy economy," said Kimberly Ong, senior attorney at the NRDC. "Along with our allies, we will continue to ensure this reckless project is shelved forever."
New York regulators denied a permit for another Williams project extending eastward from Pennsylvania's gas fields, the Constitution pipeline, in 2016, citing threats to wetlands. A lawsuit filed by the company is pending.
Business and labor groups have lobbied in favor of the pipeline, saying investment in job creation requires certainty about a sufficient energy supply.
National Grid has threatened to impose a moratorium on new gas hookups in New York City and Long Island if the pipeline isn't built. Consolidated Edison has already imposed such a moratorium in suburban Westchester County, saying existing pipelines can't satisfy increased demand for natural gas.
https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/05/16/stories/1060340931

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Democrats Cool on Policy Riders for Energy Spending Bills

May 15, 2019 | Politico Pro

By Alex Guillén and Anthony Adragna

With appropriations season in full swing, House Democrats are mostly steering clear of the policy riders that have bedeviled the process in previous years.
During the Obama administration, GOP lawmakers frequently tacked on provisions designed to stymie regulations they opposed at EPA, the Interior Department and elsewhere, including the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the U.S. rule and Obama’s authority over national monuments' boundaries. Others would have targeted the use of the social cost of carbon to evaluate the financial impacts of climate change and stopped EPA from using an international pollution law to write climate change rules.
Now, Democrats — who often derided those GOP riders as “poison pills” — are so far resisting employing the same tactics.
“I like a clean bill. I am a very straight-laced appropriator, I don’t want any riders on our bill,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who chairs the House energy and water spending panel.
Previous riders made passing spending packages more difficult, and ultimately many were removed during negotiations with the Senate anyway, said Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), chairwoman of the House Interior-EPA appropriations subcommittee.
“It's not our job to do the work of the authorizing committee. That's the job of the authorizers,” McCollum told reporters after a markup. “Our job is to get the bills funded, to get them funded on time, to get them out to door and to serve the American people. That's what my focus is going to be."
Republican appropriators said they weren’t surprised Democrats are avoiding policy riders on specific regulations given how vehemently they opposed them previously.
“They didn’t like our riders so I didn’t expect to see any of them in there and that’s okay,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) told POLITICO. “In an ideal world, I would prefer not to have any riders on an appropriations bills, but the reality is sometimes that’s the only way you get something done — and they might discover that in the future.”
Other Republicans suggested their prior policy riders may have been intended more for political messaging purposes than achieving policy changes, and they said Democrats might be better able to hide their priorities by tweaking funding levels rather than offering high-profile riders on specific regulatory efforts.
“I’ve benefited in the past by stuff being hidden in appropriations bills,” House Natural Resources ranking member Rob Bishop (R-Utah) told reporters. “It’s still a lousy way of doing congressional work.”
Democrats have not kept the bills completely free of riders. They have included a few in this year’s bills, but those are aimed more at broader political disagreements with Trump rather than specific regulatory issues.
The House’s State and Foreign Operations bill, for example, included language blocking the U.S. from formally withdrawing from the Paris climate accord. Trump in 2017 vowed to withdraw, although procedurally the actual withdrawal cannot happen until November 2020.
In addition, the energy and water spending bill unveiled this week bars its funds from being used by the Trump administration to build a wall on the U.S. border.
And as part of the anti-rider push, McCollum irked Republicans by stripping out a few provisions from the Interior-EPA spending bill that had been considered legacy riders and which were included each year as a normal part of the process.
Among those were a ban on EPA regulating lead in ammunition, which conservationists say poisons millions of birds and other wildlife; language preventing the sage-grouse from being listed as endangered; and a provision that stopped the Army Corps of Engineers from changing the definition of "fill material," a move Republicans warned would inhibit coal mining.
Those prior riders had survived the partisan gauntlet, ultimately winning enough congressional support to be signed into law with the spending packages, argued Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), the Interior-EPA subcommittee ranking member.
They “are important not just to members of this committee but members of Congress as a whole, so it’s important that we represent them in the bill,” he told POLITICO.
Joyce said the removal of the old riders was one of a handful of disagreements preventing him from supporting the measure. Republicans will attempt to add those back in during the full committee markup, he added.
"We chose to leave the Republican riders out,” McCollum said after the hearing. “I lead the team for the Democratic party, and I had no obligation to carry forward things. We start the bill new each year."
So far, Democrats are getting cover from environmental activists who have opposed the Trump administration regulatory rollbacks.
“The funding levels were really our focus," said Elizabeth Gore, senior vice president for political affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund. "That’s where we think we can have the biggest impact in terms of changing the policies and the way that these key environmental programs are being implemented.”
Gore noted EPA’s budget would increase under the House bill by 7.5 percent, reaching its highest level since 2010. Meanwhile, DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would get 11.5 percent more — after the White House instead asked for an 85 percent cut.
“These are big victories for the environmental community,” Gore said.
Marc Boom, director of federal affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said his group preferred to use litigation and other tactics to push back on the Trump deregulatory actions rather than trying to force Republicans to accept the Democratic riders.
“Using the appropriations process to attempt to stop these rollbacks has little chance of success and only feeds into the vicious cycles that lead to brinksmanship and shutdowns,” he said. “There are other methods of opposing these rollbacks and we are pursuing them vigorously.”
In addition, some riders can have consequences in the long term, not just the fiscal year in question.
For example, Congress irked environmentalists in 2017 when an appropriations bill included a rider that declared biomass to be a carbon-neutral power source, a controversial move that some experts have criticized as scientifically dubious.
Prompted by that rider, EPA released a policy last year declaring wood and other biomass from managed forests that was burned for electricity would be considered carbon-neutral, a major win for the wood industry and timber-heavy states.
https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/05/democrats-cool-on-policy-riders-for-energy-spending-bills-1444844

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Transportation and Infrastructure News

Energy and Commerce Rolls out Infrastructure Package

May 15, 2019 | E&E News PM

By Maxine Joselow

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee today released a broad infrastructure package aimed at addressing climate change, clean energy, broadband access and water infrastructure, among other things.
The package, dubbed the "Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow's (LIFT) America Act," abounds with significance. It marks the first comprehensive piece of infrastructure legislation to come out in the 116th Congress, and it stands to inform a high-profile meeting on infrastructure funding between President Trump and Democratic leadership next week.
The Energy and Commerce panel plans to hold a hearing on the package next week, Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said today.
The package would provide more than $33 billion for clean energy, including $4 billion to "update the U.S. electric grid to accommodate more renewable energy and make it more resilient," according to a news release from Pallone.
"We cannot wait any longer to act on climate or to modernize our nation's aging infrastructure," he added in a statement. "The LIFT America Act makes significant investments in rebuilding our country and takes an important step in combating the climate crisis by moving us towards a clean energy future and reducing our carbon emissions."
The package would offer $4 billion for the deployment of more renewable energy, including $2.25 billion for the installation of solar panels in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
An additional $23 billion would go toward energy efficiency efforts, such as retrofitting and weatherizing buildings to lower carbon emissions.
With respect to water infrastructure, more than $21 billion would be devoted to ensuring safe drinking water, including $2.5 billion to establish a new grant program for communities affected by a class of chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
And with regard to broadband internet, $41 billion would be used to ensure access for 96% of the country.
E&C appears to have beaten another committee to the punch. The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee is also working on drafting infrastructure legislation under the leadership of Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.).
"Still working on it," DeFazio said when asked today about the status of that legislation. "I don't set the timelines," he added.All eyes on pay-fors
Meanwhile, Democratic leadership is gearing up for a second meeting about infrastructure at the White House next week, although an exact date has yet to be nailed down.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that she and her caucus are hoping any infrastructure deal includes not only roads and bridges, but also mass transit, water systems, schools, housing, broadband and even satellites.
At their first meeting last month, Trump and Democrats agreed to a $2 trillion price tag for an infrastructure deal, although they did not discuss how to pay for it (E&E News PM, April 30).
Pay-fors will be the focus of the discussion next week. One option generating lots of buzz on Capitol Hill is raising the federal gasoline tax.
The tax of 18.4 cents per gallon hasn't been increased since 1993, threatening the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, a pool of money for road and bridge repairs.
DeFazio and other Democrats have embraced a gas tax hike as a short-term funding solution. But some Republicans remain skeptical of the idea.
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) said at an Infrastructure Week news conference today that the gas tax doesn't account for the rising number of electric vehicles on the nation's roads; those vehicles run on electricity rather than gasoline.
"We have to be careful about that gas tax because the electric vehicles are increasing in use across this country," he said.
McKinley told E&E News after the news conference that he favors an "all of the above" approach to funding options, including the possibility of implementing a vehicle-miles-traveled fee. That would entail charging people a fee based on the distance they drive.
"Put everything on the table," the West Virginia lawmaker said. "We used to pay our taxes based on mileage driven back in the '50s."
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) told E&E News today that she's hoping any infrastructure deal includes climate change components, such as mandates for resilience.
"I definitely think that we should consider the effects of climate change on infrastructure," Luria said. "In my area, we have sea-level rise and recurrent flooding."
The House Ways and Means Committee will ultimately be tasked with vetting and approving a funding option for the infrastructure bill.
Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) declined to say whether his panel would take up a gas tax.
"I'm in favor of coming to an agreement with the administration as to how to finance it," Neal told reporters. "Let's see what the administration has got to say."
https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2019/05/15/stories/1060339391

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House Energy Panel Democrats’ Infrastructure Bill Targets Climate, Water

May 15, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Dawn Reeves

House energy panel Democrats are floating a sweeping infrastructure bill that targets climate change and drinking water quality with billions of dollars in grants for energy efficiency, electric vehicles, renewable power, and drinking water systems, including efforts to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), chairman of the Energy & Commerce Committee, and all 31 other panel Democrats on May 15 introduced the “Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s America Act” (LIFT America), an action timed to coincide with the annual Infrastructure Week.
The bill covers only programs within the committee’s jurisdiction and does not include any pay-for mechanisms, and is separate from a pending House transportation panel proposal to fund highway, transportation and wastewater infrastructure.
The energy committee is moving quickly on its bill, with Pallone scheduling a May 22 hearing and saying in a video announcement that the legislation satisfies two major goals: protecting the climate and boosting the economy. It provides “significant investment in rebuilding our nation and moving toward a clean energy future.” The investments in cleaner energy and vehicles, as well as efficiency “will help us reduce greenhouse gas pollution,” he said.
The bill also “invests in our drinking water and health care infrastructure to protect human health,” including authorizing $2.5 billion in grants over five years to remove PFAS from drinking water, says a summary. It also directs EPA to create a list of eligible treatment technologies, defined as those that can remove all detectable amounts of PFAS, as lawmakers grapple with how to address contamination from the substances.
And it authorizes $18.7 billion for other drinking water programs including the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund, the Indian Reservation Drinking Water Program, School and Child Care Program Lead Testing grants and more -- including programs President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal would cut.
Further, the bill allows $2.7 billion over five years for EPA brownfields redevelopment grants, and it authorizes $40 billion to expand broadband to rural areas.
Pallone in the video announcement called the legislation “a good comprehensive bill that will create jobs, strengthen our economy and help combat climate change.”
Among provisions aimed at reducing GHGs, the Democrats’ bill includes $33 billion for clean energy that authorizes $4 billion over five years for grid infrastructure, modernization, security, resiliency and efficiency. The funding is intended to enhance energy security, smart grid technology and efficiency upgrades as well as establishing a strategic transformer reserve to speed recovery following extreme weather events.
It also authorizes $1.85 billion over five years for home and school energy efficiency retrofits, including removing lighting containing polychlorinated biphenyl from schools.
‘Significant Investments’
Further, it reauthorizes the Diesel Emissions Reductions Act at $1.25 billion over five years to reduce emissions from older vehicles including school buses; $1.75 billion over five years for weatherization grants and smart buildings; and $15 million for a pilot program to promote energy efficient water distribution systems.
It also reauthorizes the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program at $17.5 billion to deploy infrastructure for delivering alternative fuels as well as $500 million to improve energy efficiency in public buildings.
Other items include $4 billion to make the strategic petroleum reserve “environmentally sound;” establishing two other refined product reserves, one in the Northeast and one in the Southeast; and giving the energy secretary authority to establish other regional reserves to mitigate extreme weather events on fuel supplies.
It also authorizes $2.25 billion over five years to create new grant programs for distributed energy and solar installations in low-income communities; $850 million over five years to spur development of “smart communities” infrastructure; and $300 million over five years to support expanded development of alternative fuel infrastructure and expanded use of alternative fuel vehicles.
Pallone added in a statement, “We cannot wait any longer to act on climate or to modernize our nation’s aging infrastructure. The LIFT America Act makes significant investments in rebuilding our country and takes an important step in combatting the climate crisis by moving us towards a clean energy future and reducing our carbon emissions.”
He said it will both strengthen the economy by creating good paying jobs, make critical investments in broadband and bring critical improvements to drinking water and health care infrastructure.
The same day that Democrats introduced the bill, the labor-environmentalist BlueGreen Alliance sent a letter to House and Senate leaders laying out its infrastructure priorities and policy recommendations that strikes a similar tone while also noting the possibility for bipartisan agreement on the issue.
Such an infrastructure policy must reduce GHG emissions as well as other air and water pollution; ensure all projects built with public dollars are subject to “Buy America” standards; ensure workers are paid prevailing wages; improve air and water quality and public health; and prioritize use of the most efficient, resilient and cleanest materials and products with the lowest carbon and toxicity footprints.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/house-energy-panel-democrats%E2%80%99-infrastructure-bill-targets-climate-water

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Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) From Making It to Managing It, Plastic Is a Major Contributor to Climate Change

May 15, 2019 | Environmental Health News

By Brian Bienkowski

Plastic is polluting oceans, freshwater lakes and rivers, food and us — but it's also a major contributor to global climate change, warns a new report.
Scientists, policymakers and consumers are increasingly aware of the threat plastic pollution poses to oceans and water, wildlife, food and people. However, often lost in calculating plastics' environmental harm is its contributions to climate change.
"I don't feel the petrochemical buildout is being considered as part of climate change discussions at any level in our state [Pennsylvania]," Michele Fetting, program manager at the Breathe Project, a coalition of 24 environmental organizations, told EHN.
Petrochemical facilities, such as cracker plants, take fuels like natural gas and convert them to chemical products, which are most often used to make plastics. Shell is building a massive petrochemical complex in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, as part of a broader effort to put such facilities in multiple spots along the Ohio River Valley.
Each step in the life of a piece of plastic — production, transportation and managing waste — uses fossil fuels and emits greenhouse gases and, as petrochemical and plastic production continues to ramp up, these impacts must be considered, according to the report released today by the Center for International Environmental Law, the Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, 5Gyres, and #BreakFreeFromPlastic.
The organizations say putting a stop to increases in petrochemical and plastic production "is a critical element in addressing the climate crisis."
"Nothing short of stopping the expansion of petrochemical and plastic production and keeping fossil fuels in the ground will create the surest and most effective reductions in the climate impacts from the plastic lifecycle," the authors wrote.
The report included stark numbers:In 2019, producing and incinerating plastic will emit an estimated 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of 189 coal-fired power plants.If production continues on the same trajectory, by 2030 plastic-related greenhouse gas emissions will reach 1.34 gigatons per year, which is roughly the emissions released by 295 coal plants.By 2050, the annual greenhouse gas emissions from plastics will reach an estimated 2.8 gigatons per year – the equivalent of about 615 coal plants.
Carroll Muffett, president & CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law, told EHN the report is "underestimating the climate impacts of plastics production."
"If you look, for instance, at fracking, there are uncalculated emissions with land disturbance, or shipment of water to fracking wells, or massive ongoing leakage from natural gas pipelines," he said. "All will dramatically increase with upstream feedstocks for plastics."Entire lifecycle
The report calculates the climate costs of plastic by looking at each step in the life of plastic: extraction and transport of fossil fuels; refining and manufacturing; managing waste; and plastic pollution in the environment.
Fossil fuels are a critical component in producing plastic. Extraction and transport, the report estimates, contributed about 9.5 million to 10.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2015 — that's just in the U.S. Another estimated 108 million metric tons was emitted outside the U.S.
"If growth trends continue, plastic will account for 20 percent of global oil consumption by 2050," according to the report.
Globally, refining and manufacturing plastics contributed roughly 184 million to 213 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2015. This is the equivalent of about 45 million vehicles driven for a year.
Managing plastic waste, mostly via incineration, contributed about 16 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2015.
Curbing ocean carbon capacity
What about all that plastic that ends up in our oceans?
Scientists have yet to quantify the climate impact of such pollution, but nascent research suggests it may continually release greenhouse gases and could interfere with the "ocean's capacity to absorb and sequester carbon dioxide," the authors wrote.
This early research suggests microplastics are toxic to phytoplankton, which take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and ocean water and produce carbohydrates via photosynthesis, and zooplankton — microscopic creatures that transport carbon deep into the ocean.
"Without this critical step in the process, the CO2 fixed by the phytoplankton would quickly re-enter the surface waters and the atmosphere," the authors of the new report wrote.
"This is deeply troubling," Muffett said. "There's potential that microplastics are interfering with climate not just by release methane, but by interfering with the ocean's ability to serve as natural carbon sink."
“The Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory of plastics”
Despite growing awareness of plastic pollution, there is an ongoing expansion of petrochemical and plastic production happening in the United States, as well as in China, the Middle East, Europe and South America.
In the fall of 2017, the American Chemistry Council estimated $164 billion in investment for 260 new or expanded petrochemical facilities in the U.S. Just one year later, that estimate was blown away — the Council reported investments of more than $200 billion in more than 330 new or bolstered facilities. "In the space of a year, both the planned investments and the number of new or expanded facilities grew by more than 25 percent," the new report said.
Muffett said to a "great extent the production of plastics is driven not by demand but by supply."
"Plastics' feedstock is 99 percent fossil fuels," he said. "Plastics are effectively a byproduct, taking what would be a waste stream from oil and gas. The fracking boom is resulting in a massive buildout of new infrastructure for plastics production."
Roughly 70 percent of petrochemicals in the U.S. become plastic resins, synthetic rubber, or fibers, Muffett and colleagues wrote in the new report.
A lot of the expanded production is centered around the Ohio River Valley, spanning from Pennsylvania to Illinois.
Fetting agrees that supply is driving the bolstered production. In Pennsylvania, there is "frack sand, cheap gas, water supplies and infrastructure," she said. "Industry sees this as the perfect location to build this … the Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory of plastics."
Fetting said local media has just recently caught on to the story that this buildout will forever alter the region. And, while direct human health impacts from emissions are a huge concern, she said nobody is talking about the climate change impacts.
"For every cracker plant built, we'll need to frack about a thousand wells every two to three years to provide feedstock. That's a lot of climate pollution," she said. "And we haven't heard any of our elected officials talk about this as part of a climate discussion."
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates natural gas production in the Appalachian region will see an "increase of more than 350 percent from 2013 to 2040," according to the new report. "Production is projected to increase [more than]700 percent by 2023 compared to 2013 figures."
The region's petrochemical expansion will require an estimated 583 billion gallons of freshwater and 380 million tons of sand.
When it comes to the petrochemical expansion, at least in Pennsylvania communities, "people still don't understand what's happening," Fetting said.
But that's starting to change.
"When people see they're turning our region into another cancer alley, it makes people sit up and say 'what have we done?' 'What are we doing'?"
Shell did not return requests for comment on the new report.
Stopping single-use, reducing fossil fuels
The authors lay out a roadmap to reduce plastic's climate impact including: stop making and using single-use plastics; stopping the buildout of new oil, gas and petrochemical infrastructure; moving communities to zero-waste; forcing producers of plastic goods to accept responsibility for the environmental impacts; and putting in place more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals (that take plastic impacts into account.)
"The underlying drivers of climate change and the plastic crises are closely linked – so the solutions are closely linked," Muffett said. While some of the solutions may seem political nonstarters, he said tackling single use plastics and curbing fossil fuel use are a great first step.
"One of the best ways to respond to the plastics crisis is to keep fossil fuels in the ground in the first place," he said. "And the overwhelming proportion of plastics in our lives are unrequested and completely unavoidable."
https://www.ehn.org/plastic-causes-climate-change-2637105746.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

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(ACC Mentioned) As Ohio Valley Ponders Plastics Growth, Report Warns of Threat to Climate

May 15, 2019 | 89.3 WFPL News Louisville

By Brittany Patterson

As a new plastics industry emerges in the Ohio Valley, a report by environmental groups warns that the expansion of plastics threatens the world’s ability to keep climate change at bay.
The report released Wednesday by the Center for International Environmental Law, Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance, and others used publicly available emissions data and original research to measure greenhouse gas emissions throughout the entire life cycle of plastics. That includes the extraction of natural gas, used as a feedstock for plastic production, to the incineration of plastic products or their final resting place in the world’s oceans.
“Ninety-nine percent of what goes into plastics is fossil fuels and their climate impacts actually start at the wellhead and the drill pad,” said Carroll Muffett, president of the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law and one of the authors of the report. “In light of the fact that the build-out of plastics infrastructure is ongoing and accelerating, we wanted to better understand the implications of that massive new build out of plastics infrastructure for the global climate.”Fossil-Fueled Plastics
The report estimates production and incineration of plastic this year will add more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, or equal to the pollution of building 189 new coal-fired power plants.
That figure will rise substantially over the next few decades as the demand for single-use plastic continues to grow, the report finds. By 2050, emissions from the entire plastics life cycle could account for as much as 14 percent of the earth’s entire remaining carbon budget.
Plastics manufacturers are investing millions into new petrochemical plants, including in the Ohio Valley, driven by demand and cheap natural gas from the fracking boom.
For example, the report cites Shell’s Monaca ethane cracker plant currently under construction in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. It’s permitted to release up to 2.25 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution annually. Similarly, Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical is seeking permits for a cracker plant in Belmont County, Ohio, across the Ohio River from West Virginia.
The plant would be permitted to release the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions of putting about 365,000 cars on the road. Muffett said that sort of increased investment in plastics manufacturing was one of the main reasons the groups decided to highlight the climate implications associated with plastics.
“This petrochemical build-out is a key driver of plastics contribution to climate impacts now and in the future,” he said. “This build-out is going to lead to the production of massive quantities of new plastics. It’s also going to lead to the incineration and disposal of massive amounts of new plastics.”Industry Response
In a statement, the trade group the American Chemistry Council said the report missed the mark because it failed to take into account that plastics are increasingly replacing heavier, more energy-intensive materials, which can reduce emissions during both the manufacturing process and during transportation.
“Because plastics are strong and lightweight, they help us do more with less,” stated Steve Russell, vice president of the group’s plastics division. “Plastics help us ship more product with less packaging, which means fewer trucks on the road; plastics help make our vehicles lighter and more fuel efficient, so we go further on a gallon of gas; and plastic insulation and sealants help make our homes and buildings significantly more energy efficient by sealing off outdoor temperatures.”
The report also outlined a gap in emissions data for the plastics life cycle, particularly in its infancy, when natural gas is being extracted and transported to refineries and other manufacturing facilities.
“Throughout that process, there are significant emissions, and many of them remain unquantified,” Muffett said. “Even many of the sources of emissions, like compressor stations, or the miles of pipelines involved, official estimates of how many compressor stations there are can vary by an order of magnitude, and that means that there are really fundamental senses in which the data for understanding the scale of this problem just isn’t there. And it needs to be there.”
The report also called for additional research into the impacts of microplastic pollution in the world’s oceans, including more study of the ways in which microplastics may be negatively impacting the ability of oceans to take up carbon emissions.
https://wfpl.org/as-ohio-valley-ponders-plastics-growth-report-warns-of-threat-to-climate/

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Interior Chief Dismisses Climate Concerns in First Natural Resources Hearing: 'I Haven't Lost Any Sleep over It'

May 15, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Miranda Green

Democratic House lawmakers on Wednesday pressured Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to commit to considering climate change in all future agency decisions, but the former energy lobbyist wouldn’t take the bait.
“What’s the number for how concerned you are about us hitting 415 parts per million of carbon dioxide?” Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) asked Bernhardt regarding a recent study that found carbon dioxide levels are the highest in human history.
“I haven’t lost any sleep over it,” Bernhardt responded.
Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee grilled the newly appointed Interior Secretary over his thoughts on climate change and how the agency, which oversees drilling on national lands, should consider climate impacts as it drafts its policies.
“You have the discretion to issue oil and gas leases on federal lands. There are certain laws that require the department to take climate change into account when it's managing its land. And so Interior would have the ability to make choices that would be consistent with those goals,” Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) told Bernhardt at the hearing.
Bernhardt pushed back on insinuations that environmental laws bound him to ease off President Trump’s energy independence agenda, which includes expanding oil and gas leasing on public lands.
Emissions from drilling on public lands make up nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S, according to a federal reportreleased last November.
“I think if you all have a view on climate change that says don’t develop energy on federal lands that’s fine. You have to go through a process of codifying it and providing that direction. And if you provide it, I’ll faithfully execute it,” Bernhardt told the lawmakers.
“Just to say from today forward, David Bernhardt says, ‘No development on public lands,’ I do not have that authority.”
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) challenged Bernhardt’s claim that the Interior chief didn’t have enough authority to make decisions on global warming without a congressional bill.
“You claim that Congress hasn’t given you enough direction to address climate change,” Levin said. “What type of direction would you want Congress to give you to make it clearer?"
Bernhardt said he wasn’t given specific direction to stop drilling.
“Whatever you think you can do to stop it. If that’s what you want to do, go for it. But that should happen in this body. That’s not something the Department of Interior does with a magic wand,” he said, shrugging off the obligation.
Democratic lawmakers challenged Bernhardt on a range of issues during the committee hearing, his first as Interior head. Questions revolved around reports that he signed off on policy decisions that ultimately benefited various former lobbying clients of his and that he’s been stonewalling providing members with requested internal documents.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) pointed to a slide of a page of computer code sent to lawmakers among the batches of documents they requested from Interior.
“I call this the gibberish slide. I have no idea what this says, but you sent it on,” Lowenthal said.
Liberal lawmakers on the committee challenged that while Interior had provided large quantities of documents, they had not provided information specific enough to their requests, which they labeled a clear attempt to obfuscate.
“There is quantitative response to the request and qualitative response to the request… The qualitative response is our point. While we have reams of paper, we don’t have quality content,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz), chairman of the committee.
Grijalva had previously been vocal about his frustration with Interior’s lack of response to requests for documents. The testiness between the Interior Department and his committee nearly exploded into a standoff two weeks ago when Bernhardt wouldn't commit to a date to testify before it.
Bernhardt later agreed after Grijalva promised to first hold a one-on-one meeting with him.
“The committee needs to know what kind of relationship we're going to have with you as an equal branch of government from now on,” Grijalva asked Bernhardt at the hearing.
“I’d like to hear from you if you feel the same way the President does in terms of committee oversight. Can we expect to have a healthy relationship with the Interior Department?”
Bernhardt acknowledged there was frustration, and said maybe they could find a way to sit down again and discuss expectations further.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/443894-interior-chief-dodges-climate-questions-during-first-natural

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Climate Guidance Revamp to Give Public a Say, Trump Adviser Vows

May 16, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Dean Scott

President Donald Trump’s top environmental adviser vowed May 15 to give the public a chance to weigh in on the Trump administration’s plans for replacing the Obama administration’s broad climate change policy.
Mary Neumayr, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee she’ll release a draft of the Trump guidance, which has been under review at the Office of Management and Budget since February, and invite the public to comment before making it final.
Releasing the draft for comment “will depend on the OMB process, but we anticipate we’ll move forward in the near future,” she told senators.
Committee Democrats pressed Neumayr to pledge a broad outreach effort before moving any actual replacement for the Obama climate guidance, which directed agencies to address climate change in environmental reviews.
They said they expect the new policy to diminish or even ignore the need for environmental assessments to include a review of climate impacts.
‘No Environmental Protections Allowed’
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said the council should hold hearings around the U.S. to get to broad public engagement, but Neumayr declined to provide such assurances.
Markey said actions by Neumayr’s environment council threaten an array of environmental protections under the National Environmental Policy Act, the landmark 1970 law requiring environmental assessments of highways, dams, and major energy projects.
The administration’s actions threaten to dilute NEPA to the point the law might be better labeled “No Environmental Protections Allowed,” Markey said.
The council in 2017 revoked a 2016 Obama administration guidance directing agencies to consider climate change impacts in environmental reviews and permitting. CEQ, which coordinates environmental policy in the executive branch, also oversees NEPA environmental reviews, although the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory agencies conduct the actual assessments.
Streamlining Raises Concerns
The Trump administration has framed many of its changes as long-needed streamlining of what have often been lengthy environmental review and permitting process. Major projects on average take four and a half years to receive a green light, Neumayr said.
The chairman of the Senate environment panel, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said the Trump administration should be applauded for moving away from “overreaching environmental policies and punishing regulations.” Barrasso also called the Obama climate guidance “unworkable” and said it only served to delay projects and increase uncertainty.
Still, the changes concerned Democrats.
The U.S. can’t “streamline our way to a healthy climate,” Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the environment committee’s top Democrat, told Neumayr.
Any changes to the environmental review process must be environmentally protective, Carper said.
“In fact, the wrong types of environmental streamlining can make our already dire situation even worse,” he said, referring to climate change.
Carper also pressed Neumayr to explain what actions she is taking “to protect us” from climate change as Trump’s top environment adviser.
Neumayr responded by pointing to CEQ’s efforts to “advance development of modern and resilient infrastructure” though she provided few additional details.
The CEQ chairman also is attempting to move the first broad revamping of NEPA regulations that haven’t been substantially changed since 1978. The council last summer provided a glimpse of what it might propose under any NEPA rule changes, publishing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking.
It is continuing to review the more than 12,500 comments it received before moving to the next step, which would be to publish a formal proposal and request more comments.
Trump issued an executive order in August 2017 to create a “one federal decision” policy for federal environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects. It directs multiple federal agencies to develop a joint schedule, known as a permitting timetable, with the goal of completing most environmental reviews within two years.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/climate-guidance-revamp-to-give-public-a-say-trump-adviser-vows

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New Industry-Environment Coalition Seeks To Break Hill GHG Gridlock

May 15, 2019 | Inside EPA

By Doug Obey

A new coalition of top businesses and environmental group is launching to support enacting new legislation “as soon as possible” that includes “an economy-wide price on carbon,” the first time in over a decade that such a group has formed to advance major federal climate change policy.
The group, dubbed The CEO Climate Dialogue, comes as the short-term path to such legislation is seemingly blocked by the Trump administration and continued opposition from most Republicans in Congress.
Even so, the group carries echoes of a prior coalition formed in 2007 that helped spur the House to pass a major cap-and-trade bill two years later, though that measure failed in the Senate.
“The group aims to build bipartisan support for climate policies that will increase regulatory and business certainty, reduce climate risk, and spur investment and innovation needed to meet science-based emissions reduction targets,” says a May 15 press release on the new initiative.
The coalition includes 13 U.S. and global Fortune 500 companies: DuPont, Dominion Energy, Dow, Exelon, Ford, LafargeHolcim, BASF Corp., Citi, BP, Shell, DTE, Unilever, and PG&E Corp.
It also includes four environmental groups -- Center for Climate & Energy Solutions, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and World Resources Institute.
The group in a series of guiding principles for federal climate action calls for U.S. policy to “ensure the country is on a path to achieve economy-wide emissions reductions of 80 percent or more by 2050 with aggressive near- and mid-term emission reductions commensurate with this goal.”
Other principles include that any bill is “effective” -- defined in part as providing certainty that emission goals will be met and allowing capital incentive industries to “adjust in an economically rational manner.” Any policy “must focus on emissions reductions outcomes, not specific resources or technologies.”
The group also seeks “market-based” policy, in the form of an economy-wide price on carbon implemented “at the least cost to the economy and households”; a “durable and responsive” policy that is adaptive over time; a “do no harm” policy that safeguards against emissions leakage and negative biodiversity land and water impacts; and a policy that promotes “equity.”
“Policies must include mechanisms to invest in American workers, and in disadvantaged communities that have the least resources to manage the costs of climate change,” the group's principles say.
Some Hill Democrats who have long pushed for major climate policy are voicing early optimism about the group's launch. For example, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), the ranking Democrat on the Senate environment committee, said during a May 15 hearing that the coalition's launch was a “welcome announcement,” particularly because it includes energy companies.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in a statement added that the “corporate announcement is a good sign, a sign that the good guys in corporate America will show up on Capitol Hill and fight for climate action. Now, the test will be whether these companies make good on their promises, whether more major companies join them, and whether the major corporate trade associations persist in their relentless hostility.”
On the same day as the group's launch, Republicans on the House Ways & Means Committee voiced significant skepticism of revenue-neutral carbon tax -- while embracing an innovation-centric approach to reducing GHGs -- even though one major plan has major industry support and has been tailoring its sales pitch toward conservatives wary of growing the government or regulatory burdens.
Lawmakers must “find ways to make clean energy more affordable . . . not drive up traditional energy costs for families and businesses,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the panel.
USCAP Similarities
The group's formation comes a dozen years after the launch of the since-disbanded U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) -- a group that included some of the same members -- as well as some companies or environmental groups that are not in the new effort. The Meridian Institute, which facilitated USCAP, is also coordinating the new coalition effort.
The new coalition's approach contrasts with the USCAP approach, in its apparent effort to keep its options open on the design of a policy, in contrast to USCAP's call for cap-and-trade as “essential” alongside more specific criteria designing such an emissions cap and other potential climate policies.
But the timing of the new coalition is similar to the 2007 USCAP rollout in that it is launching roughly two years before most observers think serious Hill action on federal legislation is possible -- at the earliest.
Similarly, two years after USCAP's launch, the House passed cap-and-trade legislation, but the effort failed in the Senate in 2010.
Industry members from that launch absent from the current list include Alcoa, Alcan, AIG, Caterpillar, Conoco- Phillips, John Deere, Duke Energy, FPL Group, General Motors, GE, Siemens, PNM Resources, Pepsico, Johnson & Johnson, Marsh and Boston Scientific.
Environmental groups from the prior effort not signing on, at least for now, include Natural Resources Defense Council and National Wildlife Federation.
Members of the new group not listed on USCAP's initial 2007 principles -- which were subsequently updated -- include Ford, Citi, DTE, LaFargeHolcim, Exelon, Dominion Energy and Uniliver..
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/new-industry-environment-coalition-seeks-break-hill-ghg-gridlock

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We Just Broke a CO2 Record. Here's Why It Matters

May 16, 2019 | E&E Climatewire

By Chelsea Harvey

Another climate milestone soared by last weekend when scientists announced that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit 415 parts per million for the first time ever (Climatewire, May 7).
It's the latest in a long list of broken records, and like the others, it promises to hold the title temporarily. Atmospheric CO2 is rising at accelerating rates — currently climbing at close to 3 ppm each year, and getting faster. Every year, the world sees new levels that were previously unrecorded in modern human history. The last time CO2 concentrations hit 415 ppm was likely close to 3 million years ago.
Atmospheric CO2 levels are directly correlated with rising global temperatures. But it's the warming, itself, that often captures the most international attention. World nations participating in the Paris climate agreement have chosen to set their goals in terms of global temperatures, aiming to keep the climate from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 1.5 C if possible, above its preindustrial condition.
And, indeed, global temperature milestones may make even bigger headlines when they occur. It's major news when yearly or monthly temperature records are broken. Same when nations experience their hottest heat waves or when winter temperatures are the highest ever recorded.
So why does it matter when we hit a new CO2 milestone? And why monitor carbon dioxide concentrations instead of just paying attention to global temperatures?
There are a variety of reasons, some more obvious than others.Measuring progress
The primary value in keeping tabs on CO2 concentrations is to monitor global progress on addressing climate change — and to keep tabs on how quickly global climate targets are approaching.
There's still some scientific uncertainty regarding exactly how much warming is associated with a given increase in atmospheric CO2. But scientists are able to calculate a broad range of likely outcomes. This has given rise to a concept known as the "carbon budget" — a scientific estimate of how much additional CO2 would cause the world to blow past its temperature targets.
A special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released last fall, estimated that emitting no more than 420 billion to 570 billion tons of carbon dioxide would give the world approximately a 66% chance of meeting the 1.5 C temperature goal. That's only around 12 years' worth of current global greenhouse gas emissions.
With this budget in mind, the report also included a set of recommendations on global policies consistent with the target — namely, that nations will need to collectively reduce their carbon emissions to zero within the next 30 years.
Monitoring global CO2 concentrations allows scientists to keep tabs on the progress they're making in real time, and the speed at which the temperature targets are approaching, under the estimated carbon budget.
"And at this point, we are doing a terrible job," said Pieter Tans, head of NOAA's Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases group.
Not only are atmospheric concentrations still climbing, but the rate seems to be accelerating. Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography's CO2 Program, which monitors CO2 concentrations at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, noted that this year's total increase will probably be around 3 ppm. The recent annual average has been hovering around 2.5 ppm.
The emissions cuts needed to meet the Paris climate targets, on the other hand, would manifest as a slowing, and ultimately a halt, to the rise of atmospheric CO2 levels.Warnings from the past
In addition to measuring progress on global climate action, atmospheric CO2 may be able to provide some clues about the climate consequences the world should expect in the coming years.
Samples taken from ancient sediments at the bottom of the ocean, fossilized corals, or ancient ice from Greenland or Antarctica can provide researchers with chemical information about the Earth's climate millions of years in the past. This kind of data can tell scientists what the planet was like the last time global carbon dioxide levels were as high as they are today — or as high as they're expected to get in the coming decades.
During the last geological era that saw CO2 concentrations over 400 ppm, global temperatures were about 3 C higher, according to paleoclimate expert Gavin Foster of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.
"There was very little ice on Greenland, there was no ice on West Antarctica, and the East Antarctic ice sheet was a little bit reduced," he said. "So sea levels as a result were a lot higher."
Many of the consequences that climate models project for the future are similar to the kinds of effects that paleoclimate studies suggest have happened in the distant past. In that way, previous ages may provide some useful hints about the Earth's response to major climate change.
Still, that's not to say these kinds of effects are likely to materialize tomorrow. As Foster notes, there's a time lag between the emission of greenhouse gases and the total effects they have on the global climate system.
Even if humans stopped emitting all carbon today, it would still take decades or even centuries for global temperatures to stabilize, and perhaps between 1,000 and 2,000 years for the climate system as a whole — including the response of the world's ice sheets, sea levels, ecosystems and so on — to reach a point of equilibrium.
It's also important to note that today's conditions aren't perfectly comparable with those in the past. Even if today's CO2 concentrations are similar to the levels seen millions of years ago, the rate at which they're currently climbing probably "outstrips anything we've seen in the geological record for at least 65 million years," Foster said.
Although the past may provide some important clues to the future, it's impossible to say for sure if the planet will respond to such rapid increases in the exact same way it responded to the slower changes in CO2 millions of years ago.
And that knowledge can be valuable for scientists, as well, Foster points out. Just as it's helpful to use the past for clues about what the future may hold, it can also be useful to note the ways the present-day climate response is different from what's believed to have happened in the past. That information can help scientists sharpen their understanding of the Earth's response to extremely rapid changes in global carbon levels and, thus, their predictions for the future.
"We've sort of switched from pointing out the analogous behavior to expressing the nonanalogy," Foster said.Clues to the carbon cycle
Atmospheric CO2 can also help scientists keep tabs on the global carbon cycle — not just how much carbon humans are emitting into the atmosphere, but how much carbon is being soaked up or released from the Earth's forests, wetlands, oceans and other natural ecosystems.
For one thing, scientists can compare their observations of total carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to their estimates of how much carbon dioxide is being emitted by humans. That allows them to calculate how much extra carbon is being absorbed by these natural sinks.
"We see that carbon dioxide is increasing less rapidly than we would expect as a result of all the emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning and land use," Keeling pointed out. "And that extra carbon that's not ending up in the air must be ending up in the ocean and the land."
They can also monitor carbon dioxide levels — and concentrations of other greenhouse gases, like methane — at specific sites around the world to determine whether there are any significant changes occurring in the world's natural carbon sinks.
Researchers have suggested that continued climate change, or other human disturbances, could cause some natural ecosystems to begin storing up less carbon than they used to, or even to begin releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It's important to keep tabs on these kinds of changes, which can affect scientists' estimates of how quickly global greenhouse gas concentrations are rising.
Thawing permafrost in the Arctic, for instance, is one of the biggest uncertainties about future greenhouse gas emissions from natural sources. As the landscape warms, the thawing soil is known to release large quantities of methane and carbon dioxide.
A significant increase in Arctic emissions would, theoretically, cause scientists to notice a growing divergence between the emissions measured in the Arctic versus the midlatitudes farther south, according to Tans, the NOAA scientist. So far, monitoring suggests that the gradient between the two sites is fairly constant, he said. But he added that "we are keeping tabs on that" because of the high potential risks should thawing permafrost get out of hand.
It's also worth noting that rising CO2 concentrations can pose extra risks to the Earth system that are unrelated to rising temperatures, such as ocean acidification, the chemical process that occurs as carbon dioxide dissolves into the sea.
So just as monitoring milestones in global temperatures is useful to researchers, keeping tabs on global greenhouse gas concentrations also provides a variety of valuable scientific insights.
Still, one of its greatest values may be the simplicity with which it presents the problem to the public. In the same way each new "hottest year on record" provides a real-time reminder of the physical progression of climate change, each carbon dioxide milestone also creates a marker of the human actions behind that warming.
"The CO2 build-up is an example of a milestone that we want to keep track of," Keeling said. "It's important that people keep actual numbers in their head so they get an appreciation for how this is playing out."
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2019/05/16/stories/1060340447

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Republican Tax Writers Reject Carbon Pricing

May 16, 2019 | E&E Daily

By Nick Sobczyk

Republican members of the House tax-writing panel yesterday warded off any talk of a carbon tax on the right, underscoring the tenuous GOP position on climate change as Democrats use their majority to message on the issue relentlessly.
Several of the witnesses before the Ways and Means Committee openly called for a price on carbon in their opening statements, as did many Democrats, but ranking member Kevin Brady (R-Texas) immediately dispelled any notion that his side of the dais would support the idea.
"We believe a carbon tax is not the solution to address our environmental challenges," Brady said in his opening statement, citing U.S. emissions decreases during the last few decades and technological advancement in the oil and gas industry.
A price on carbon was always unlikely to pass the House in this Congress, much less the GOP Senate, and it's still not entirely clear how the idea fits into the broader progressive push to aggressively address climate change under the banner of the Green New Deal.
But the continued Republican reluctance on Ways and Means in the face of a growing coalition of "eco-right" groups pushing for carbon pricing again showed the limits to some hearts changing, even if there were hints at bipartisan work in the energy section of the tax code.
Still, some climate advocates had been hoping that the hearing would offer a symbolic look at the future of climate policy. Ways and Means is a key committee of jurisdiction for any measure to address climate change, and yesterday marked the first hearing on the topic in more than a decade.
Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) had also raised hopes on the eco-right by inviting former Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, GOP sponsor of a carbon tax bill in the last Congress, to testify before yanking his invitation under pressure from leadership.
"I will tell you some positive news from the last few months is that Republicans are light years from where they were when I left this building in January," Curbelo, who showed up to watch the hearing from the sidelines, told reporters.
To that end, nearly every Republican present yesterday acknowledged basic climate science, but they offered scant clues as to what, if anything, they would support.
Brady, for example, picked apart both carbon tax proposals and the 2009 stimulus package, which included $90 billion in incentives and investments for clean energy, including a huge chunk to build out renewable power.
And corporate support for a carbon pricing scheme, in the form of Climate Leadership Council Chairman and CEO Ted Halstead, who testified yesterday, appeared to do little to sway the GOP.
Halstead's group advocates for a carbon fee starting at $40 per ton, in exchange for regulatory rollbacks, with dividends returned to households. It's supported by a wide array of major companies, including oil giants such as BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Instead, Brady offered as a solution advances in the energy industry that have reduced emissions during the last two decades and existing tax incentives the committee has worked on over the last few years.
He also said Republicans would continue pushing for a deal in negotiations on the Environmental Goods Agreement at the World Trade Organization to get rid of tariffs on clean energy technology.
Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) even used his questioning time to run through a PowerPoint presentation of "disruptive" energy technology, mostly low- or zero-emission fossil fuel plants with carbon capture.
His point was that the panel can do more work in the tax code to incentivize carbon capture and other clean energy technology, and that may be an area of bipartisan cooperation.
"CO2 levels have fallen to their lowest level in a generation. That can't be denied," Brady said.
Brady acknowledged that it's "absolutely not" enough to address climate change but went on to tout advancements in the oil and gas industry, including methane reductions in the Permian Basin.
All in all, the GOP rhetoric mirrored the focus on energy "innovation" and existing emission reductions that Republicans across Capitol Hill have been pushing for months.
But while the United States reduced greenhouse gas emissions 14% between 2005 and 2017, a statistic commonly cited by Republicans, emissions rose again last year, and scientists say that is not enough to curb dangerous climate change.
Katherine Marvel, an associate research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told the panel that rapid decarbonization would be needed in any scenario to keep the world from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels. But she said that shouldn't be discouraging.
"I feel both very fortunate and a little strange to live in these times because right now we have accumulated enough evidence that we know that climate change is happening and we know that it underpins many of the extreme events that you're talking about," she told Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "But at the same time, I would caution us not to stray into doomism."
Blumenauer blasted the idea "that we can just innovate our way out of this."
"We're having happy talk," he said. "We're avoiding significant things that we know would make a difference, and we are actively doing things that imperil our families, our communities, the future of the planet."
At the same time, some Democrats were pleased to see the GOP's climate evolution.
"We've come to a major point, Mr. Chairman," said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.). "We've come to the point where we're looking at global warming; we're all agreeing with it now. Wow, I don't know where the change occurred. Must have been an immaculate conception of some sort here."'Provoked a lot of thought'
But it was Curbelo, a former member of the panel, who had become the story of the hearing before it ever started.
Neal offered him an invitation to talk about carbon pricing, but it was rescinded amid pressure from leadership, including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
Hoyer thought it would have been inappropriate to give Curbelo a platform because he has not ruled out a run against Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for his former Florida seat.
"What it has done is exposed again the reason why things don't get done here and why the big issues don't get resolved — because too many people are focused on their own personal political interests; too many people are focused on getting reelected," Curbelo said. "And not enough people are trying to build the consensus we need."
Curbelo released his planned testimony advocating for a carbon tax ahead of the hearing.
He also left the door open to another run at his seat, or perhaps a bid to be mayor of Miami-Dade County.
He suggested the incident has him thinking harder about it.
"I had purposefully not thought very much about my political future, but this episode has certainly provoked a lot of thought," Curbelo said. "I'm not ready to make any decision, but needless to say, this institution needs a lot more sobriety and sincerity, as evidenced by this episode."
https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2019/05/16/stories/1060340797

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