Preview Newsletter
ACC PM
-
(ACC Mentioned) BPS: Safer Alternative?
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
With “BPA-free” products in supermarkets across the world, from drink bottles to till receipts, attention is now turning to the potential health effects of bisphenol S (BPS), widely used as a replacement. -
Our View: Bipartisanship Means That All Sides Give
Mar 14, 2015 | Santa Fe New Mexican
U.S. Sen. Tom Udall isn’t often on the receiving end of criticism because of his environmental positions. But his work on an overhaul of federal law regulating chemicals is opening up the senior New Mexico senator to attacks — that he is too cozy with the chemical industry, chief among them. -
On Trafficking and Toxins, Congress Would Rather Fight Than Win
Mar 16, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Melinda Henneberger
It’s not that members of Congress don’t work hard; on the contrary, most are regular human storm clouds of activity. -
Bipartisanship is Not a Dirty Word
Mar 16, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
The lead editorial in today’s Santa Fe New Mexican pushes back against the grossly unfair criticism of Senator Tom Udall because he is backing critically needed legislation to reform our nation’s nearly 40-year-old chemical safety law. -
A Columnist Wonders: Can Congress Do Its Job?
Mar 16, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jack Pratt
“It’s not that members of Congress don’t work hard…yet they regularly manage to avoid accomplishing anything even on those matters on which they overwhelmingly agree,” observed Melinda Hennebergert this morning inBloomberg Politics. -
US EPA Extends Snur's Consultation Period
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has extended the comment period on its proposed significant new use rule for long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylate and perfluoroalkyl sulfonate chemical substances (CW 21 January 2015). -
Treading Lightly with Chemicals
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A new tool, the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP), aims to establish meaningful measurement of overall corporate performance towards safer chemicals in products and supply chains. -
Green Chemistry: Industry Collaboration Will Drive Innovation
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Steve Bennett
At its core, green chemistry is a collaborative activity that brings expertise from many fields together to holistically create materials, components and products in a sustainable manner. -
Mich. Governor's Energy Plan Leans Heavily on Efficiency
Mar 16, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday delivered a long-anticipated energy plan that calls for replacing generation from aging coal plants over the next decade by leaning more heavily on energy efficiency, renewables and natural gas. -
EPA Listens as Select Group Weighs Tools for Carbon Rule Compliance
Mar 16, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
A platoon of U.S. EPA officials and three dozen stakeholders with skin in the game got together last week to figure out how an interstate trading market might aid compliance with the proposed Clean Power Plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions. -
States Raise Concerns Over Ozone NAAQS Monitoring, Permitting Updates
Mar 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lea Radick
State air regulators are raising concerns about updates EPA is proposing to emissions monitoring and permitting requirements as part of its pending revision to the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), saying that the changes could potentially complicate their ability to demonstrate attainment of a more-stringent standard. -
Previewing Public Input, Groups Split On EPA's Secondary Ozone NAAQS
Mar 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lea Radick
EPA's decision not to propose a distinct secondary ozone air standard sought by environmentalists is prompting praise from industry groups who say a stand-alone limit would spur regulatory confusion, but uncertainty from states about how to attain the proposal -- a preview of upcoming public comments on the rulemaking. -
Stronger Ozone Standards Are More Than a Moral and Legal Imperative
Mar 16, 2015 | The LA Times
By The Times Editorial Board
Decades after scientists described the ways in which air pollution scars and shrivels young lungs, groundbreaking research out of USC has delivered the good news that clean-air regulations are making a difference. -
Keeping the EPA Honest
Mar 16, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
In western Oklahoma, we’re no strangers to regulatory overreach from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Farmers, ranchers and small businesses are often surprised to find themselves the target of burdensome and downright inefficient regulations. -
Week Ahead: GOP Spotlight on EPA Rules, Crude Oil Ban
Mar 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
House Republicans will hold a slate of hearings challenging some of the Obama administration's main environmental rules. -
Gore: ‘Put a Price’ on Climate Skepticism
Mar 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Former Vice President Gore said politicians should be punished politically if they don’t agree with the scientific consensus on climate change -
Greens Meet With White House on Oil-By-Rail Safety Rule
Mar 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
One week after railroad industry players pressed the White House not to require more sophisticated braking systems in the upcoming oil train safety rule, green groups used their own meeting on Friday last week to urge that the much-anticipated DOT regulation be strengthened. -
DOT Quietly Floats Overhaul for Aging U.S. Oil Pipeline Network
Mar 16, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Mike Lee
Almost two years after an Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline split open and sent Canadian crude flowing through a neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark., federal regulators have quietly proposed a sweeping rewrite of oil pipeline safety rules.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
-
(ACC Mentioned) BPS: Safer Alternative?
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
With “BPA-free” products in supermarkets across the world, from drink bottles to till receipts, attention is now turning to the potential health effects of bisphenol S (BPS), widely used as a replacement. In the US, the National Toxicology Program has embarked on an in-depth study of BPS, while Belgium is evaluating the chemical under the EU’s Community Rolling Action Plan (Corap).
BPS has a strikingly similar chemical structure to BPA – with two phenol groups connected by a sulfone (SO2) group, instead of BPA’s branched three-carbon group. “There’s a big demand to study BPA replacements because here we are putting them in consumer products and we’re right back where we were in the 1990s with BPA. We don’t really know anything about them,” says Laura Vandenberg, an expert on endocrine disruptors from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “We know they are in consumer products, we know people are being exposed to them, yet we really don’t know what they are doing in our bodies,” she adds.
BPS is on the Corap as a suspected endocrine disruptor, with some indications of possible effects on reproduction. Following an initial substance evaluation, which remains confidential, Belgium now intends to put together a risk management option analysis (RMOA), which will help to decide whether the chemical is a substance of very high concern (SVHC). “The RMOA is a first step. If we decide to write an Annex XV dossier [for inclusion on the Candidate List], it can take time,” says Martine Rohl from DG Environment.
The Swiss Federal Office of Public Health has offered to help Belgium with BPS’s substance evaluation and recently published research highlighting the presence of BPA alternatives in thermal paper (CW 22 January 2015).
The Swiss team urges caution when substituting BPA with BPS or bisphenol F (BPF) because they appear to exhibit “almost similar endocrine activity”, based on their in vitro tests and in silico results.
BPS is more heat stable and sunlight-resistant than BPA. It is thought to be less likely to leach from the polyethersulfone that it can be used to manufacture than BPA is from polycarbonate, as illustrated by a 2011 study on baby bottles, led by Catherine Simoneau from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
Meanwhile, industry is confident that BPA and its analogues are safe at current exposure levels. For example, Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council’s polycarbonate/BPA global group has said that BPA is very unlikely to cause health effects at “any realistic exposure level” because of the way that it is processed in the body.
Yet people are undoubtably exposed to BPA analogues. In 2012, a US team led by Kurunthachalam Kannan, an analytical chemist at New York State Department of Health, identified BPS in 81% of urine samples collected from 315 people, with the highest concentrations in samples from Japan, followed by the US and China. They also found BPS in till receipts, boarding passes and recycled paper.
Guided by professor Kannan’s figures, BPA expert René Habert from the Université Paris Diderot, France, estimates a human’s internal BPS concentration to be “roughly” ten times lower than that of BPA, but predicts that exposure will increase as more BPA is replaced.
So far, most of the exposure work on BPA analogues has focused on thermal papers, as reflected in areport by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety.
Concerns raised in the report led directly to France’s National Research and Safety Institute setting up a study of female cashiers exposed to BPA and BPS through handling thermal paper; the results are expected by the end of March.
Meanwhile, in January 2014, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a study of BPA and 19 alternatives in thermal paper. Although it highlights significant data gaps, the report estimates BPS and many other alternatives to be a “moderate hazard” for a range of endpoints, from carcinogenicity to genotoxicity and reproductive effects.
Sending signals
In March 2013, US researchers published the first paper to suggest that BPS might have a “functional response”, affecting enzyme cascades in cells. “At the time, there was hardly anything out there on BPS,” except for studies pointing to its presence in consumer goods and till receipts, recalls lead researcher Cheryl Watson from the University of Texas.
Professor Watson has long studied oestrogen receptors and is an expert on BPA. “For many years, people said that you need bucket-loads of BPA to cause an effect. What we came along with was the fact that that only applies if you look at the classical signalling pathways for oestrogens, which are nuclear,” she recalls. Instead, professor Watson decided to focus on “very understudied” pathways for oestrogens to act – through receptors in cell membranes, which mediate the activation of a series of enzymes.
“When we started studying these receptors, we found that they are incredibly sensitive so that BPA had effects at far lower levels than anybody had ever imagined,” says professor Watson. Her team’s 2013 study on rat pituitary cells showed that BPS, “once considered a safe substitute for BPA”, may rapidly disrupt membrane-initiated cell signalling, leading to altered cell proliferation and cell death.
Meanwhile, professor Vandenberg is carrying out rodent studies on BPS to see how it affects the mother, by monitoring behaviour and oestrogen-sensitive organs such as the mammary gland, brain and uterus. The team will also study the mothers’ pups. The results have yet to be published but “are consistent with the idea that BPS is an endocrine disruptor”, reveals professor Vandenberg.
“We are seeing effects in some of the same organs that are affected by BPA,” she says. “The effects might be a bit different, which is not a huge surprise because even if both of the chemicals bind to oestrogen receptors, which there is plenty of evidence that they do, they don’t bind in exactly the same way as the natural hormone.”
In France, professor Habert’s team has shown low concentrations of BPA, BPS or BPF to affect testosterone production by foetal testis explants in vitro. “BPS and BPF are not safe alternatives to BPA,” state the researchers, who are trying to elucidate BPA’s mode of action and then to discover whether BPS and BPF act in the same way. If the chemicals do share a mode of action, they could have an additive effect, predicts professor Habert. His research so far suggests that the human mechanism differs from that in rodents – raising concerns over the suitability of rodent studies – and does not involve an oestrogen receptor called ERalpha, as might be expected.
Professor Habert highlights a Canadian study led by Deborah Kurrasch at the University of Calgary, which suggests that, at low concentrations, BPA and BPS act on androgen receptors rather than oestrogen receptors (CW 22 January 2015).
This fits with a suggestion from the US Food and Drug Administration’s endocrine-screening database, mentioned in Belgium’s 2013 Corap document, that BPS could potentially bind to androgen receptors.
“We haven’t fully fleshed out the mechanism but I’m very interested in this androgen receptor binding,” says professor Kurrasch. She postulates that it could be linked to the fact that boys are more likely than girls to have autism. “There are a lot of hypotheses out there. I’m not saying that we have explained it but I am wondering if we are starting to show some insight into that,” she adds.
Her team has studied how BPA and BPS affect brain development in zebrafish embryos, following epidemiological studies suggesting a link between higher urinary levels of BPA in mothers and higher rates of aggression and anxiety in their offspring (CW May 2012).
“We were interested if you could start to understand mechanistically what it is about BPA that may be changing the brain,” explains professor Kurrasch. The team focused on a time point analogous to the second trimester of human pregnancy, when cells become neurones. They exposed the zebrafish embryos to “very low” concentrations of BPA or BPS, selected to match environmental BPA levels measured in the Oldman River, Canada, and found that both of the chemicals can affect neurodevelopment.
BPA or BPS exposure appeared to affect the timing of neurone development. Professor Kurrasch uses an analogy of people waiting at a bus stop. “They have to get to the right place. If a cell becomes a neurone too soon or too late, it will get on the wrong bus and be taken to the wrong spot.”
The findings, say the team, suggest that BPA-free products “are not necessarily safe” and “support a societal push to remove all structurally similar bisphenol analogues and other compounds with endocrine-disruptive activity from consumer goods”. Professor Kurrasch is currently running similar experiments, using pregnant rodents.
National Toxicology Program
At the University of Oregon, US, zebrafish specialist Robert Tanguay has shown that BPA exposure, during early development, appears to affect social behaviour of male fish. His team is currently using zebrafish to study over 20 BPA analogues, as part of a project for the National Toxicology Program (NTP) in the US.
His results are eagerly awaited by Vicki Sutherland, a toxicologist from the National Institute of Health and Environmental Sciences, who is coordinating the NTP project on BPA analogues. The project involves collating existing data, including from high-throughput studies, as well as carrying out further in vitrotests. Once enough data has been collected, the idea is to take selected analogues, including BPS, forward for in vivo studies lasting up to two years.
The chronic in vivo data will also feed into a side project on integrated assessment, bringing together different types of test data. The plan is to compare the in vivo data with results from early-stage tests to judge which assays are most relevant. “We’re trying to look at some of the shorter-term assays to see if they can predict the in vivo situation so that we don’t have to put every single analogue through a complete battery of tests,” says Dr Sutherland.
“Because there is minimal hazard identification information for bisphenol analogues, integrated assessment would be very beneficial,” she adds.
Many in the field back a move to design safer chemicals from scratch, using existing knowledge and integrated testing approaches. For example, professors Vandenberg and Watson are both involved in a project called the tiered protocol for endocrine disruption (TiPED), which aims to guide the synthesis of safer chemicals. TiPED consists of five testing levels, beginning with in silico approaches and ending with mammalian tests. The project is currently being road-tested on a set of mystery chemicals developed by synthetic chemists.
BPA was an industrial chemical long before in silico models existed but Vandenberg is confident that, were it to be tested now, it would be flagged as acting as an oestrogen in the lowest TiPED tier. “We could all benefit if we instituted the knowledge that we now have about how these chemicals act; if we agreed to set up this kind of assessment before they are put into products,” says professor Watson.
To comment on this article, click here: Chemical Watch Forum
-
Our View: Bipartisanship Means That All Sides Give
Mar 14, 2015 | Santa Fe New Mexican
U.S. Sen. Tom Udall isn’t often on the receiving end of criticism because of his environmental positions. But his work on an overhaul of federal law regulating chemicals is opening up the senior New Mexico senator to attacks — that he is too cozy with the chemical industry, chief among them.
Yet compromise is necessary to craft major legislation, in this case a law to restore Environmental Protection Agency authority to regulate chemicals used in consumer products and manufacturing (the original 1976 law is unworkable after a 1999 court case gutted much of it). Without a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act, much of the country is left unregulated.
Udall, a Democrat, and Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana are co-sponsors of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. (Lautenberg is a deceased U.S. senator who previously had worked on the legislation.) The current version of the statute has been two years in the drafting, with the first committee hearing scheduled on Wednesday. Passage — especially through a more conservative Republican House — is by no means assured, but Vitter believes there is potential for progress (as well as seven Democratic and seven Republican sponsors).
That this bill is being introduced shows that bipartisanship can still happen, with Udall toiling behind the scenes, bringing all parties to the table and meticulously crafting a law. What compromise doesn’t often do — and it didn’t in this case — is produce either the toughest law to regulate chemicals or, on the other hand, give the chemical industry a free ride. In compromise, everyone must give.
Without new legislation, though, many states, including New Mexico, have few avenues to protect citizens from chemical damage and even fewer methods of investigating or banning them. Unlike states such as California, New Mexico doesn’t have the necessary laws; we need federal law and enforcement.
As with any compromise, the bill has its critics. California U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, particularly, has been attacking the legislation — her competing bill (with U.S. Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts) also was introduced last week.
Udall makes this sensible point that we need to keep in mind: His bill is the best bill that can pass. The question that matters is whether it improves the status quo. In other words, would the Udall/Vitter bill be better than what we have? Considering the bill changes how damages are figured — to consider harm done rather than a complicated cost/benefit analysis — it’s definitely an improvement. The bill also spells out particularly vulnerable populations that need protection, including pregnant women, the elderly, children and workers who deal with chemicals. With up to $18 million in “user fees,” the chemical industry will help fund EPA oversight of chemicals. It’s progress.
The sticking point for Boxer and her supporters is that federal standards would pre-empt state law, particularly California’s tougher chemical safety laws. For states like New Mexico, where there is little state oversight, that’s hardly an issue. We have no laws to pre-empt. Rather than continue unprotected — and New Mexico is hardly alone — Congress should take up the Udall/Vitter bill so that citizens across the country have greater protection. There’s nothing to say, too, that as the legislation moves through Congress it can’t be strengthened.
With compromise, all sides must give. Udall’s work ensures that the foundation is there for solid, workable legislation that will keep people safer and better regulate dangerous chemicals. With some 1,500 chemicals finding their way into the marketplace each year — 80,000 are already here — this legislation needs to pass.
-
On Trafficking and Toxins, Congress Would Rather Fight Than Win
Mar 16, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Melinda Henneberger
It’s not that members of Congress don’t work hard; on the contrary, most are regular human storm clouds of activity. Yet they regularly manage to avoid accomplishing anything even on those matters on which they overwhelmingly agree.
Last week, for instance, they kept from passing a bill on human traffickingafter Democrats discovered some abortion language in the law that they said they hadn't known was there. Naturally, Democrats would rather not pass a bill at all than sign off on that language. Just as Republicans would rather not pass a bill at all than strip out that language. Though the losers, members from both parties roundly agree, are the trafficked women both sides really do believe they want to help.
This week, we may see yet another no-brainer bill stalled, though with a little different dynamic at work: On Wednesday, the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee will hear testimony on a bill that would update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, in part, in order to regulate the many substances we didn’t even know about four decades ago.
“We can’t wait for the perfect bill; this is urgent.”Richard Denison, Environmental Defense Fund
Here, too, in theory, all parties agree that yes, the law is in need of a major overhaul. But the compromise bill that even the Environmental Defense Fund supports doesn’t go far enough for some Democrats, who may as a result keep it from passing.
Called the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, after the late New Jersey Democrat who spent years pushing to fix the original law, the bill would require safety reviews for all chemicals currently on the market. (At present, the government can’t even regulate lead or formaldehyde, and only a tiny fraction of chemicals are covered by state regs.)
But there's also a competing bill, co-sponsored by Democratic SenatorsBarbara Boxer of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts that would go much further, banning asbestos and cracking down on carcinogens. “Our citizens deserve nothing less than a bill that protects them, not chemical companies,’’ Boxer said in a statement. But since her bill appears to have no real chance of passing, nothing is just what citizens may get.
The “half-a-loaf or none” conundrum isn’t a new one, but in the increasingly rare cases of bipartisan agreement, is paralyzing pushback from within one of the parties now inevitable?
“We can’t wait for the perfect bill; this is urgent,” said the Environmental Defense Fund’s Richard Denison, who’ll be testifying on behalf of the bill on Wednesday. In the view of some Democrats, that means he will be taking the Republican position.
It has already been 26 years since any environmental bill of this magnitude (1990's Clean Air Act) has passed. And it has been 40 years since the original Toxic Substances Control Act was passed in 1976.
As currently written, the human trafficking bill that stalled last week includes language that dates to that bicentennial year. It would make permanent the Hyde amendment, passed annually every year since 1976, that bars the federal government from funding abortions through Medicaid except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at risk. The trafficking bill also now says money from fines paid by traffickers can’t be used to pay for most abortions.
But, Democrats argue convincingly that that’s not going to happen: "This bill will not be used as an opportunity for Republicans to double down on their efforts to restrict a woman's health care choices," said Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat.
Republicans promise they won’t be budging, either, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accusing Democrats of “trying to kill this important bill because of a provision they claimed somehow they missed.”
Both are principled positions. Yet maybe the way lawmakers wield those principles against one another explains why, according to a Real Clear Politics average, only 18.2 percent of Americans polled currently approve of the job Congress is doing.
-
Bipartisanship is Not a Dirty Word
Mar 16, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
The lead editorial in today’s Santa Fe New Mexican pushes back against the grossly unfair criticism of Senator Tom Udall because he is backing critically needed legislation to reform our nation’s nearly 40-year-old chemical safety law.
The editorial is an island of sanity in a sea of hyperbolic partisan rhetoric unleashed this week against the strongly bipartisan Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. As the editorial makes clear, Senator Udall deserves the lion’s share of the credit for negotiating over the past two years to secure major concessions from the chemical industry and greatly improve the public health protections in this legislation. A testament to that success is the fact that 7 other Democratic Senators joined Senator Udall as original cosponsors of the bill right out of the gates, and many more are seriously looking at it.
Read the editorial to see for yourself why, despite all the noise out there about this bill, it’s a good thing Senator Udall has done.
-
A Columnist Wonders: Can Congress Do Its Job?
Mar 16, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jack Pratt
“It’s not that members of Congress don’t work hard…yet they regularly manage to avoid accomplishing anything even on those matters on which they overwhelmingly agree,” observed Melinda Hennebergert this morning inBloomberg Politics.
She was talking, in part, about the new bill to reform America’s broken chemical safety law. Everyone agrees the current system is a national disgrace, preventing the EPA from banning even known carcinogens like asbestos. Yet there’s fierce opposition to the only legislative vehicle that could successfully change things.
Hennebergert notes that some opponents to the bill, which has co-sponsors across the ideological and partisan spectrum, object to the fact that it is a compromise necessary to pass Congress. She calls it the “half-a-loaf or none conundrum” and says that “in the increasingly rare cases of bipartisan agreement, paralyzing pushback” now seems inevitable.
Her frustration is clear, especially since “it has already been 26 years since any environmental bill of this magnitude (1990's Clean Air Act) has passed.”
She notes that some opponents of the bill favor alternative legislation – a bill without bipartisan sponsors or the compromises necessary to gain traction. It’s an all or nothing approach and, with it, “nothing is just what citizens may get.”
The question is, can Congress prove her wrong and get something big done to protect public health and the environment?
-
US EPA Extends Snur's Consultation Period
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has extended the comment period on its proposed significant new use rule for long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylate and perfluoroalkyl sulfonate chemical substances (CW 21 January 2015). The original commenting date of 23 March has been pushed back 90 days to 26 June.
The agency says the move comes following the receipt of several comments asserting that there may be significant implications for the supply chain. "It is critical," it says, "that interested stakeholders have sufficient time to respond to the proposed rulemaking."
-
Treading Lightly with Chemicals
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A new tool, the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP), aims to establish meaningful measurement of overall corporate performance towards safer chemicals in products and supply chains. Dr. Mark Rossi, project lead and co-founder of NGO Clean Production Action (CPA), says the CFP provides the first-ever common metric of its kind for publicly benchmarking corporate chemicals management and profiling leadership companies.
The CFP works by evaluating four areas of a company:management strategy: measures the scope of corporate chemical policies and their integration into business strategy, accountability, and employees’ incentives for safer chemical use, as well as support of initiatives and public policies for safer chemicals;chemical inventory: measures a company’s level of knowledge about the chemicals used by its suppliers in products, components, and manufacturing processes; and its systems for managing chemical data and ensuring supplier compliance with its reporting requirements;progress measurement: measures the goals set to reduce chemicals of high concern, progress in establishing a baseline corporate Chemical Footprint and reducing chemicals of high concern, and the degree to which alternatives are assessed, identified and implemented; and public disclosure: measures whether a company publicly releases the chemicals in products and manufacturing, whether it discloses participation in CFP and its answers to these questions, and whether the answers have been independently verified by a third party.
Once evaluated, a company receives a score which can be shared with customers and investors, with the main objective being to measure continuous improvement in chemicals management.
Expectations
Hopes for the project are high. The format is based on the now widely used Carbon Disclosure Project Index (CDP), which ranks companies in terms of carbon emissions performance and disclosure. The 2014 CDP index saw nearly 2,000 companies have their climate disclosures independently assessed and ranked against CDP’s scoring methodology. Dr Rossi is keen to see the CFP reach these numbers. “The CFP is modelled on the CDP in terms of the type of questions asked, and like the CDP, it speaks to different audiences.” He says chemical footprinting can apply to any business sector. “Retailers, health care organisations, governments and investors all see value in a comprehensive measure of business progress to safer chemicals.”
Participating companies, who have been trialling the new tool, believe it could fill a void in chemical disclosure. “Encouraging transparency and material health in products and supply chains supports the overall sustainability initiatives of a company,” says Roger McFadden, vice president and senior scientist at the world’s largest office supply company, Staples. He says it will add a level of transparency and help companies reduce reputational and regulatory risks and reveal opportunities for moving to safer chemicals. “CFP can be a driver for market differentiation, competitive advantage and innovation,” he adds
Investor benefits
While business sectors can take advantage of the competitive aspect of the CFP, it is the investment community that is likely to benefit most. Susan Baker of US investment firm, Trillium Asset Management, says the CFP fills a gap in sustainability data and will give investors a better understanding of if and how companies are managing chemical use in their products and/or supply chain. “We learn of poor chemical use management after an accident occurs or toxic chemical is found,” she says.
A fully operational CFP will give investors metrics around the extent to which chemical use and reduction of chemical hazards are prioritised and could help reduce uncertainty in the marketplace, she says. “Data service providers track chemical spill and release data, and companies report following chemical directives issued by regulatory bodies, but investors are not getting adequate disclosures around if or how companies are managing overall chemical use in the manufacture of their own products or those they contract to manufacture them” she says.
Investors may start to better understand that, because chemical exposures are linked to billions of dollars in healthcare costs, this could impact economic growth, she says. “This speaks to the ‘Universal Owners’: large institutional investors hold a slice of productive capital in the economy, so drags on the global economy – such as higher healthcare costs and lost work hours from exposure to harmful chemicals – impact financial returns.”
Procurement is another area where the CFP could improve decision making around chemicals, says Dr Rossi. “For those who procure – from those in governments, retail or health care organisations – it gives them a framework to evaluate companies on their overall performance,” he says.
Success and scalability
The first stage of the project involved working with the piloting companies, which were entering data into the tool. Over the next year, the project will work on connecting with the organisations that would use the information made available.
However, for the CFP to succeed and meet these expectations it will require scalability. Ms Baker says the project’s development hinges on getting endorsement from investors and other stakeholders; a communications strategy that articulates effectively the business case; industry champions speaking publicly to the value of footprinting and asset owners demanding improved disclosure of chemical use.
“If it continues to receive strong endorsements from a broad cross section of asset owners, industry and NGOs, and the business risk and opportunities afforded by rigorous management continue to play out, while pressures continue to strengthen, then I believe over time this tool will gain in popularity,” she says.
Mr McFadden agrees that the CFP will need to be adaptive, iterative, correctable and scalable. “It will take time, just as it did for carbon disclosure,“ he says. “Engaging and including a wide range of experts and stakeholders, and aligning it with business strategy, will increase the chance of chemical footprinting becoming mainstream.”
-
Green Chemistry: Industry Collaboration Will Drive Innovation
Mar 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Steve Bennett
At its core, green chemistry is a collaborative activity that brings expertise from many fields together to holistically create materials, components and products in a sustainable manner. Many companies within the Consumer Specialty Products Association apply this approach, which has led to pioneering products and processes. However, an ongoing challenge is how to bring expertise from both industry and academia together to develop effective green components and products in a timely and affordable manner.
Committed to developing alternatives
Companies in the consumer and industrial products supply chain are increasingly being incentivised by both regulatory agencies and the marketplace to develop greener, more sustainable ingredients and products. They have developed rigorous product development and ingredient selection methodologies that ensure that any replacement components provide a greater benefit than the existing and that regrettable substitutions are avoided. If the product development process is working the way it should, the “best” available ingredients have already been selected from existing alternatives.
Finding those environmentally preferable alternatives with critical functionality, cost-effectiveness and consumer acceptance, ideally utilising the principles of green chemistry and sustainability, is a goal shared by nearly all corporate research and development teams. But a company often cannot even consider reformulating until a viable alternative with the requisite functional characteristics is identified. A key corollary to that is that environmental, health and safety data must demonstrate that any alternative is preferable to the existing component. The problem is often compounded in smaller companies or in smaller markets that face unique difficulties innovating on key components because it may not be cost-effective for manufacturers to produce a new chemical for just one or two formulators.
Working in green chemistry also requires a unique set of expertise and resources that some companies may still be developing. For the most part, trained green chemists are still difficult to find outside of academic settings. Many company formulators (including chemists and toxicologists) have mastered the principles of green chemistry but may not have the formal green chemistry training necessary to implement collaborative work processes effectively.
Overcoming barriers to collaboration
In order for collaborative activities to become the norm, there are a number of barriers to overcome. First, there must be a willingness to communicate challenges and turn them into opportunities. Much of this communication will continue to take place in traditional academic literature and in professional societies, but encouraging academic-industry and regulator-industry partnerships is critical. There is a clear recognition within the green community that these conversations and collaborations need to occur. A good example would be last year’s Green Chemistry Gordon Research Conference, which focused on “green processes implemented on an industrial scale, the emphasis on academic-industrial collaboration, and the discussion of the green chemical challenges for the future.”
Next, increasing the number of scientists trained in green chemistry and expanding their influence within industry and academia, would be an impetus for change in product development. This process is particularly slow because of the time needed to develop trained educators and practitioners. But when combined with the grass roots educational activities, such as, Beyond Benign, it will achieve John Warner’s goal for the term green chemistry “to disappear and it simply becomes how we practice chemistry.”
Finally, while the benefits of green chemistry are apparent, the cost savings and investment required are not as obvious. Consequently, it is important to incentivise green chemistry through reward programmes such as the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge or the EPA’s market-driven Design for the Environment and other green third party certification programmes.
Building a collaborative model for green chemistry
There are some examples of successful collaborative green chemistry initiatives. One recent result of industry collaboration is the published scientific paper Opportunities for Greener Alternatives in Chemical Formulations, developed by members of the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute formulators’ roundtable. In this paper, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry journal, Green Chemistry, representatives from a broad range of formulated products companies developed a list of general requirements for greener alternatives and made specific recommendations for academic and industry green chemistry research. These recommendations provide a road map for future innovations.
Formulators have long understood and embraced the principles of sustainability and stewardship in design and sourcing. A core component of the Consumer Specialty Products Association mission is fostering stewardship best practices through Product Care. Our members are committed to building customer confidence in the safety and sustainability of the products they bring to market.
There are many companies with expertise on existing products and markets that have identified specific needs for alternative greener ingredients. There are many researchers with expertise in developing them, but with limited knowledge on how they might be used in products. Finding ways to bring these two distinct groups together to work collaboratively and to develop materials that actually meet a very specific business need is the next challenge for proponents of green chemistry. Together, researchers and formulators can create new safe and healthy products that reduce environmental impact and bring value to consumers and the environment.
The views expressed in contributed articles are those of the expert authors and are not necessarily shared by Chemical Watch.
-
Mich. Governor's Energy Plan Leans Heavily on Efficiency
Mar 16, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday delivered a long-anticipated energy plan that calls for replacing generation from aging coal plants over the next decade by leaning more heavily on energy efficiency, renewables and natural gas.
The moderate Republican, who began his second term in January, also called for keeping the state's hybrid electric choice law. But, he said, alternative energy providers must be able to show regulators they have ample generating capacity to meet demand.
Snyder said the state has made considerable progress since the last major energy legislation was passed in 2008. But big changes lie ahead, given environmental regulations and shifting economics of the power business.
"There is a big problem. And to be blunt, it's really simple: It's called coal," Snyder said at the beginning of a half-hour speech. "You're going to see us making a major move from coal to other sources of energy."
Snyder's plan builds on underpinnings of energy policy he laid out in 2012 -- reliability, affordability, adaptability and environmental protection. Friday, he provided a clearer vision for the state's energy mix a decade from now, though with few details about how to get there.
The plan comes a week after the chairman of the Michigan House Energy Policy Committee, Aric Nesbitt, introduced a package of eight bills to overhaul state energy policy. Michigan Democrats also introduced a very different series of energy policy principles earlier this month. And Mike Nofs, chairman of the Senate Energy and Technology Committee, is also preparing energy legislation (EnergyWire, March 12).
Snyder cited the energy discussions already underway in the Legislature, adding, "I believe we're in the same ballpark."
Snyder said the retirement of 10 Michigan coal plants in the coming years -- nine in the Lower Peninsula and one in the Upper Peninsula -- creates a "huge challenge" for the state. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the regional grid operator, has identified a potential 3-gigawatt shortfall in capacity in Michigan's Lower Peninsula in 2016.
But that challenge creates opportunity for the state to implement smart energy policy -- one underpinned by eliminating energy waste, Snyder said.
Throughout his presentation, Snyder relied on a series of pie charts showing Michigan's current and future energy mix. The governor, a former executive and board member at computer maker Gateway Inc. who goes by the handle @onetoughnerd on Twitter, frequently referred to the benefits of energy efficiency to shrink the overall size of the pie -- a goal that would help control costs, reliability and air quality.
Michigan's electricity use has declined 6 percent since 2008 legislation that established the state's energy efficiency standards, and utilities are currently exceeding the 1 percent efficiency requirement. Snyder said the state can conservatively reduce demand by another 15 percent over the next decade, probably more.
"We have a huge opportunity to drive out a lot of energy waste in our state," he said. "The energy you don't use is the most affordable, reliable and environmentally conscious results you can get."
James Clift, policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council, said he's encouraged by Snyder's emphasis on reducing energy use. But there needs to be language in the law that makes sure the governor's goals for efficiency are carried out, he said.
"If it's just sort of a soft goal with no teeth, we would be concerned," Clift said.Renewables, gas compete on price
Under Snyder's plan, the remaining pie would be divided like this: Coal would shrink to about 43 percent of the state's generation mix in 2025 from almost 60 percent. Natural gas-fired generation and renewable energy would fill the void.
The 2008 energy law (PA 295) established Michigan's 10 percent renewable portfolio standard in 2015 -- a target that utilities are on track to meet.
Michigan Democrats are calling on the Legislature to more than double the standard to 22 percent.
Snyder expects more renewable energy to be developed in Michigan. But his plan includes no expansion of Michigan's renewable standard. Instead, gas and renewables would complete on price.
"The real question is, how will natural gas compare to renewables in terms of cost?" he said. "Let's pick the best answer and do it in a portfolio approach."
Clift said he's concerned there, too, about what price forecasts are used to evaluate energy costs and whether the formula bakes in the price risk that will be borne by electric ratepayers.
"That is where the language of the law is extremely important," he said.Snyder wants to 'modify' electric choice law
Snyder recommended leaving intact Michigan's hybrid retail electric choice law that allows up to 10 percent of utilities' retail electric load to purchase energy from an alternative supplier. But, the governor said, there needs to be a change to ensure adequate generating capacity.
"Our current system does not work particularly well," he said. "I think we need to modify how that program works. If you're going to play, you have to carry your weight in terms of being an alternative provider."
Snyder proposed requiring alternative suppliers to demonstrate to the Michigan Public Service Commission that they have adequate generating capacity available on a five-year rolling basis.
Utilities have been critical of the retail choice law, blaming it for the state's projected capacity shortfall in 2016.
But at least one utility was satisfied with Snyder's proposal to require alternative suppliers to guarantee they have adequate generation capacity to serve customers.
"We can live with that," DTE Energy spokesman Scott Simons said.Utilities offer support
Otherwise, reaction to Snyder's speech from the state's two large electric utilities -- Consumers Energy and DTE Electric -- was generally favorable.
In a statement, DTE called the plan "a constructive policy framework" and said Snyder "recognizes the challenges facing Michigan's energy landscape and sees those challenges as an opportunity to transform the state's energy landscape to a cleaner, more diverse energy portfolio."
Jackson, Mich.-based Consumers Energy likewise said the plan "can ensure the development of new, reliable, affordable and clean energy resources to help continue Michigan's economic growth," Consumers said in an emailed statement.
Meanwhile, a coalition of mostly small businesses pushing to expand the state's retail choice law criticized the proposal to leave the 10 percent cap in place.
"Allowing just 10 percent of Michiganders to enjoy massive savings over the utilities by choosing their electricity supplier is wrong," said Wayne Kuipers, the group's executive director and a former state senator. "Since 2008, Michigan lawmakers have imposed a system of winners and losers in this state, with 90 percent of us being the losers."
-
EPA Listens as Select Group Weighs Tools for Carbon Rule Compliance
Mar 16, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
A platoon of U.S. EPA officials and three dozen stakeholders with skin in the game got together last week to figure out how an interstate trading market might aid compliance with the proposed Clean Power Plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
"The majority of the conversation right now is around different tools that are being developed to look at how you might prepare an implementation plan," said Michelle Walker Owenby, assistant commissioner of policy for Tennessee's Department of Environment and Conservation. "It's more a discussion of different available options and tools that are being developed and being discussed as concepts rather than 'here's a clear path.'"
Stakeholders have moved from airing grievances about the proposal to broadly discussing ways to reduce emissions under the rule's framework, Owenby said.
The Tuesday meeting in Washington, D.C., organized by the Georgetown Climate Center, examined the merits of both a rate-based state compliance plan and a mass-based plan, according to the meeting's agenda.
E&E's Power Plan Hub keeps you up to date on the latest national and state-level developments on EPA's greenhouse gas regulations for the power sector. Go to E&E's Power Plan Hub.
States can comply with the draft rule using a rate- or mass-based standard. A rate-based standard would require a state to lower the amount of carbon its power sector produces with each megawatt hour of power it generates. A mass-based standard would require states to cap pounds of carbon emitted annually from all power sources.
For either approach, participants discussed the option of "interstate trading of compliance credits" such as renewable energy or energy efficiency credits. They shared modeling efforts and discussed the impacts of regional cooperation on compliance costs.
The meeting also included a discussion of "what common elements individual state programs would need to include in order to allow participation in a centralized system, what centralized infrastructure is required, and what other guidance or support would be required," according to the agenda. One common element states might need is a standard method for measuring energy efficiency, for example.
Attendees said the talks stayed at that "high level."
States and other stakeholders are working out practicalities while they await EPA's final rule, said Ken Colburn, a senior associate for the Regulatory Assistance Project.
"States aren't in a position to dig in and start putting bricks in the wall because they don't yet know what EPA's blueprints are [in terms of approvability]," Colburn said. "While they would like to have those blueprints, they aren't just throwing up their hands. ... They are trying to identify options and work out issues that could arise."Supporters and skeptics weigh in
The event was the fifth such meeting among EPA, states, power companies and nongovernmental organizations since April 2014.
The EPA attendees comprised acting Deputy Administrator A. Stanley Melberg, acting Assistant Administrator Janet McCabe, Senior Counsel Joe Goffman and 17 other staff members. McCabe had alluded to the meeting when speaking at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Wednesday technical conference on the Clean Power Plan. Because EPA is still developing the rule, agency officials can disclose very little about what could change. They did more listening than talking at the meeting, several attendees said.
Other participants included environmental officials from a dozen states, representatives of power companies and an assortment of officials from NGOs.
"Whenever I go to discussions like these, I am reminded how seriously state regulators and many utilities and others are taking EPA's proposal and how much effort and resources they are expending to attempt to make it work," said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.
"It is so reassuring to hear the amount of effort and analysis that is being carried on throughout the country -- not just by states -- but by the regulated community. That gives me confidence that there may not be any turning back on this proposal," he said.
Both supportive and skeptical states sent representatives to the meeting, including California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.
The events are supposed to be a safe space for attendees to forgo politics and brainstorm under "Chatham House Rules," where they can share what they've heard but without attributing it to any particular state or stakeholder.
"There are a lot of ways states can choose to comply and the value of something like Georgetown is you get out on the table potential compliance pathways and what the issues are with each of them and allow people that have been thinking about these issues to discuss them," said Doug Scott, vice president of strategic initiatives for the Great Plains Institute and a former member of Illinois Commerce Commission, as well as Illinois EPA chief.Multi-state plans get attention
There was little interest among most at the meeting in a rate-based approach because of the complexity involved, said one attendee. Noting that a lot of modeling has been done, stakeholders "are all kind of reaching the same conclusion: regional, mass-based programs are far cheaper to implement, and the states know this."
The attendee said if some progressive utilities want a mass-based approach, others are likely thinking the same in private.
"Once industry knows that they have to comply, then they quickly get to their low-cost option and everybody's seeing what the low cost options are. It's not going to be easy, but it can all be worked out, especially if it's in a multi-state plan," he said.
Owenby said the concept of a mass-based plan is easier to understand, and it might seem that states would drift toward that approach, but she doesn't think many have decided.
Sam Ricketts, director of the D.C. office of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), said states are still looking at how the rule would affect them individually.
"These questions around regional coordination seem largely to be going on mostly in the realm of think tanks," he said. Some states are interested, but they are awaiting the final rule so they can understand whether they should go it alone or work together, he said.Who gets credit for renewables?
One major question EPA will answer with its final rule is how credit for renewable energy may be divided among producing and consuming states. The draft rule builds existing and potential renewable power into each state's goal, and it's unclear whether importing states that are incentivizing that power might get to count it toward compliance.
"If Iowa's wind -- all its potential for wind and all its current wind -- is in Iowa's goals, how is anyone else going to take advantage of that?" Owenby asked. "Will that be credited to other states that utilize that resource or is it going to be something Iowa wants to keep in its state goals?"
Owenby said the meetings didn't dive deeply into renewable energy crediting because there are too many unknowns until EPA finalizes the rule.
Scott and Becker welcomed the extent of EPA's participation with stakeholders both before the proposed rule was released in June and in the aftermath as more than 3 million comments flooded the agency.
"Regardless of what people think about the proposed rule or the Clean Power Plan, I think that most people recognize that the outreach that EPA has done has been really substantial," Scott said.
Becker has been dealing with EPA since the 1970s. "I have never seen such an unprecedented level of stakeholder involvement between EPA and the affected entities," he said.
"They have listened well and signaled where additional information is necessary to seriously consider the recommendation. You could almost predict with some certainty that as a result of the stakeholder input triggered by EPA's willingness to listen, there will be very significant changes to the proposal. I think EPA gets it," Becker said.
-
States Raise Concerns Over Ozone NAAQS Monitoring, Permitting Updates
Mar 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lea Radick
State air regulators are raising concerns about updates EPA is proposing to emissions monitoring and permitting requirements as part of its pending revision to the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), saying that the changes could potentially complicate their ability to demonstrate attainment of a more-stringent standard.
Updates that the agency included in its proposal to tighten the 2008 ozone NAAQS of 75 parts per billion (ppb) to a range of 65-70 ppb include expanding the ozone monitoring season for many states; revising requirements for using certain air quality monitors; and "grandfathering" certain pending Clean Air Act prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permits from having to be revised to meet the potentially stricter ozone limit.
One Western air quality official says, "We are largely trying to get our mind around what is required by EPA's proposal" and that there are a "few things in terms of implementation that make answering" questions about how EPA's proposed monitoring and permitting updates might make states' attainment demonstration "awkward."
The source hopes to see an implementation guidance from EPA in draft form before the agency finalizes the revisions to the ozone NAAQS, in order to help states to "figure out what nonattainment areas look like and figure out plans that we never really had to do before," explaining that rural communities that were previously in attainment of the current standard might be in nonattainment of a revised ozone NAAQS for the first time.
EPA says it intends to propose rules and guidance to assist areas with implementing revised standards within one year after the final standard is issued, "or sooner," according to an agency fact sheet. These rules would address classification and implementation issues, such as air quality thresholds for nonattainment area classifications, state implementation plan (SIP) and attainment demonstration due dates, and developing nonattainment area emission inventories and attainment demonstrations. EPA plans to finalize any proposed new rules and guidance by the time the agency makes final area designations, which under the proposed rule it is slated to do by Oct. 1, 2017.
Several states are unsure about what impacts the permitting and monitoring updates will have. "In terms of the monitoring and permitting changes in the proposal, the Air Quality Division staff are still evaluating what this will mean for Oklahoma and what possible effects it could have," a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality says. "We do know that our monitoring network is sufficient and no new monitors will be added."
In a separate email, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality wrote that, "Due to the extensiveness of Texas' monitoring network, there probably won't be a huge impact on monitoring based on the proposed changes to the ozone standard. For those areas that become newly nonattainment as a result of the standard change, they would be subject to nonattainment permitting rather than PSD permitting."
Proposed Changes
As part of the changes, EPA is proposing to extend the length of the ozone monitoring season for 33 states to ensure compliance with both the 2008 ozone standard and a potential lower standard if finalized, and "to ensure citizens are alerted when ozone reaches unhealthy levels," according to an agency fact sheet released alongside the November proposal.
Typically the agency requires ozone monitoring only during the "ozone season," or during the time of year when weather conditions are "most favorable for ozone formation," according to EPA. While states in warmer climates are required to monitor ozone year-round, states where the climate is colder are required to monitor for as little as four months during the summertime. However, recent year-round air quality monitor data has shown that ozone can be elevated in early spring and late fall -- beyond the bounds of the currently required monitoring season in some states. Furthermore, several western states have had ozone levels that exceed the standard during wintertime.
Under the proposed ozone NAAQS, on which EPA is taking comment through March 17, the monitoring season would be extended by one additional month for 24 of the 33 states, with longer extensions in the other nine including Wyoming (two months), Colorado (five months) and Utah (seven months) as of Jan. 1, 2017.
A Colorado state source said it is "probably good" that EPA extended the monitoring season for several states because they "experience high wintertime ozone when snow cover is on the ground."
But a second Western state source noted that wintertime ozone could be problematic in attaining the secondary ozone standard, which is designed to protect the environment.
EPA has proposed to set the secondary NAAQS at the same level as the primary standard, which is designed to protect human health. The source says if there are high ozone values in the winter, "you can have the perverse consequence of having nonattainment for the secondary standard during a time when vegetation is dormant. . . . We think there is a disconnect here."
Ozone Monitoring
Both the Colorado source and Western air official expressed concern about EPA's proposed updates to the photochemical assessment monitoring stations (PAMS) network -- a subset of air quality monitors.
EPA requires areas classified as in "serious, severe, or extreme" nonattainment with the NAAQS to operate at least two PAMS monitoring sites, which are designed to measure ozone, the pollutants that form ozone and meteorology to better understand ozone formation and to evaluate national and local ozone-reduction options. The agency has proposed to modernize and streamline" the PAMS network in the draft ozone NAAQS.
The Western state source says that depending on the level EPA sets for the ozone NAAQS and "how extensive an area is affected," the updates to the PAMS network "could be a pretty heavy resource burden for us to put more of these monitoring sites out there." PAMS network monitors are "tricky," the source says, explaining that they are not "simple" sites to operate and that it's a resource issue they are "worried about." The updates proposed to the PAMS network include requiring PAMS monitoring at any existing site in the NCore multi-pollutant monitoring network in an ozone attainment area instead of the current PAMS network requirements to improve the geographic distribution of PAMS sites and to reduce redundancy in the network.
Another update would require states to operate PAMS sites to measure nitrogen dioxide and to measure and report hourly volatile organic compound (VOC) measurements using a specific type of monitor.
The Colorado state source echoed the Western state source's concerns, saying there are "whole areas of the country [that] have never had a PAMS site before."
It is "going to be a whole new learning process for us, having to get hourly VOCs." The source conceded that it will be "nice to have [the] data, but it's going to be time intensive."
-
Previewing Public Input, Groups Split On EPA's Secondary Ozone NAAQS
Mar 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lea Radick
EPA's decision not to propose a distinct secondary ozone air standard sought by environmentalists is prompting praise from industry groups who say a stand-alone limit would spur regulatory confusion, but uncertainty from states about how to attain the proposal -- a preview of upcoming public comments on the rulemaking.
The mixed reaction to the proposal on the secondary ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) offers early insight into the input groups plan to give EPA ahead of its March 17 deadline for comment. EPA in November proposed to tighten the 2008 primary health-based NAAQS of 75 parts per billion (ppb) down to a range between 65 and 70 ppb, and to continue its current practice of matching the secondary limit to the primary limit.
However, EPA is also proposing to switch to the use of a so-called W126-based standard for implementing the secondary standard. It would be the first time the agency used the standard, after dropping its planned use in the 2008 NAAQS.
The agency's proposed rule would use a W126 seasonal index to assess the impact of the ozone on ecosystems and vegetation, within a range of 13 to 17 parts per million-hours, averaged over three years.
Industry groups are opposed to tightening the primary ozone standard below the current 75 ppb limit, but they nevertheless back EPA's plan to make the secondary standard the same. Such an approach is "well thought-out and justified" and provides adequate protection for the environment, says one industry source.
The source claims there is "zero advantage" for EPA to grant environmentalists' long-running request to craft a separate, unique secondary standard aimed at better protecting the environment from adverse ozone impacts. Such a standard "just ends up creating confusion and a lot more work with not more gain," the source argues, saying that existing EPA air rules will already help reduce both primary and secondary ozone harms.
'Policy Reason'
There is no "policy reason" to set a different secondary standard unless EPA's goal is to "stymie the economy and create more nonattainment areas," the source says. If the agency were to create separate primary and secondary ozone NAAQS, some areas could potentially be attaining one standard but in nonattainment for the other. "It's like having two speed limits on the same highway. It just doesn't make sense," the source adds.
Similarly, a spokeswoman for the American Forest and Paper Association says, "Essentially, we like what EPA did by not changing the secondary standard and aligning it with the primary; we believe the current secondary standard is protective" -- although the group opposes tightening the primary limit.
When the Bush administration issued its 2008 final rule tightening the ozone limit to 75 ppb from the previous 1997 standard expressed as 84 ppb, it dropped consideration of a separate secondary limit.
Although industry groups welcomed that decision due to concerns about the burdens of having to comply with two distinct ozone standards, environmentalists opposed it and filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The court consolidated that challenge with industry-filed litigation over the tightening of the standard to 75 ppb, and ultimately upheld the primary standard, deferring to EPA's rulemaking.
But the court in its July 2013 ruling remanded the secondary NAAQS decision back to EPA, and the proposed rule released late last year effectively serves as the agency's response to the remand. Environmentalists have already raised early concerns about the decision not to propose a unique secondary ozone limit.
For example, one environmental attorney has said they are "very disturbed" by EPA's proposal for the secondary standard, noting it is at odds with recommendations from the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee to establish a stand-alone limit in order to adequately protect the environment from ozone.
Another environmental attorney has said it is "critical" that EPA set a distinct secondary standard that goes beyond the benefits to public health, adding that tightening the standard is going to benefit ecosystems, too.
States' Concerns
While industry offers support for EPA's secondary ozone standard proposal, state regulators say they are concerned about how to attain a stricter limit regardless of the approach the agency takes.
A Western state source says their comments on EPA's proposal will convey that it is EPA's duty to set the standards for both the primary and secondary NAAQS based on available science.
If the agency chooses to adopt the W126 form for the secondary standard, "we as states need a considerable amount of guidance on how to implement a standard like that," the source says. There are "a lot of unknowns" associated with the novel secondary standard, according to the source, especially in areas with winter ozone monitoring seasons and in "hot high desert areas," in which some plants affected by ozone grow at night.
If EPA sets the same level and form for the secondary standard as the primary standard, "all the implementation details would be driven by meeting the primary standard," the source said.
However, if EPA "decoupled" the primary standard and sets an "independent" secondary standard based on the W126 metric, depending on the level of the standard, there "may be areas that are in violation of the secondary standard . . . while not being in violation of the primary and it's a mystery to me as to what the implications of that would be."
Similarly, a Colorado state source says the secondary standard is a "dilemma" as EPA is proposing it as "W126 but using the primary as a surrogate for it. . . . It seems a little odd."
If EPA does set the secondary standard using the W126 metric as proposed, the "big concern" is that rural areas are going to be in violation of the secondary standard but not in violation of the primary standard, the source says. "How is that treated, especially when you have high background ozone?" the source asks.
Background ozone is formed by natural sources, such as wildfires and intrusion from stratospheric ozone -- high altitude ozone that offers protection from the sun's ultraviolet rays -- as well as transport of man-made ozone or ozone-forming pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from overseas. It is a major concern for states that would be attaining a stricter ozone standard but for that level of natural ozone.
Likewise, the source questions if EPA sets the form for the secondary standard based on the primary standard but sets it at a level lower than the primary standard, "does that makes sense? If a rural areas does go in violation of the secondary standard, what measure would even be taken to reduce ozone?"
Primary Standard
Meanwhile, industry and environmentalists continue to spar over EPA's proposal to tighten the primary ozone standard from 75 ppb down to a range between 65 and 70 ppb.
Industry groups have often cited figures in a July 2014 study done by NERA Economic Consulting on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). According to that study, if EPA were to tighten the standard to 60 ppb, it would be "the most expensive regulation in the history of the economy" with $2.2 trillion in compliance costs and a reduction of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by $270 billion per year.
An update to that study released Feb. 26, which examines the economic impact of lowering the standard to 65 ppb, confirms NAM's previous finding that the proposed rule could be "the most expensive regulation ever issued by the U.S. government," according to a summary of the updated study.
To update the study, NERA used new EPA data that it released along with the proposed standard late last year in its macroeconomic model to estimate the economic impacts of the estimated costs of reducing emissions to attain a 65 ppb standard. NERA updated the costs of the known air controls that EPA identified to attain the 65 ppb standard using the agency's new cost data, and used the same "evidence-based approach" to develop a cost estimate for the emissions reductions needed that EPA refers to in its current regulatory impact analysis as "unknown."
NAM said the updated study found that revising the standard to 65 ppb could reduce U.S. GDP by $140 billion per year and $1.7 trillion from 2017 to 2040, and result in 1.4 million fewer job equivalents per year on average through 2040. NAM said a tighter NAAQS could cost the average U.S. household $830 per year in the form of lost consumption.
EPA made "questionable assumptions" of cost controls and "ignores logic and history," Ross Eisenberg, NAM vice president of energy and resources policy said during a Feb. 26 press conference about the revised study.
However, in a blog post written in response to the updated NAM report, Frank O'Donnell, president of the nonprofit group Clean Air Watch, calls the updated study "another hyperbolic report."
O'Donnell criticizes a map NAM produced showing areas of the country that would be out of compliance with a 65 ppb ozone standard, saying that the map "appears to be based on old information -- data from 2011-2013," and that it "apparently does not factor in one basic reality -- that the air will be cleaner a decade from now than it is today," because of various existing EPA air regulations.
-
Stronger Ozone Standards Are More Than a Moral and Legal Imperative
Mar 16, 2015 | The LA Times
By The Times Editorial Board
Decades after scientists described the ways in which air pollution scars and shrivels young lungs, groundbreaking research out of USC has delivered the good news that clean-air regulations are making a difference. In a longitudinal study that measured reductions in pollution in various neighborhoods around Los Angeles and then measured the lungs of children in those areas, researchers found that as air quality improved, the lungs of school-age children were bigger and healthier. The percentage of children with seriously impaired lung function dropped by more than half over the 17-year study period.
Yet back in the 1960s, when stricter air pollution controls were first proposed, representatives of the auto and manufacturing industries complained that it would be too expensive. The technology to accomplish it didn't exist, they said. Jobs would be lost.
That familiar refrain is starting up again, now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to tighten ozone standards. Newer studies have found that the existing standard of 75 parts per billion is still bad news for our lungs.
This is so-called ground pollution — not the ozone that forms a protective layer miles above Earth, but the mix of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds that, when heated by the sun, forms the main component of smog.The EPA estimates [the new standards] would save up to $100 billion in medical expenses and lost work nationwide, more than the cost to industry of meeting stricter requirements.-
The USC study, published this month, did not find evidence that improved lung health was attributable to lower levels of ozone. The reason is unclear. The scientific consensus on illness caused by smog is irrefutable; it's the stuff that cancels gym classes on bad days and forces elderly people and asthmatics to stay indoors. One possibility mentioned in the study is that ozone levels have not dropped as much as those of other pollutants, such as fine particulates and nitrogen dioxide.
Los Angeles and many other counties in California have yet to meet even the existing federal standard. The region covered by the South Coast Air Quality Management District suffered through 93 days last year that were above 75 ppb, though that's a big improvement over 200-plus days a year that were common during the late 1970s, and the 117 days in 2005. The EPA is proposing a new standard between 65 and 70 ppb; the precise level will be set after the public comment period that ends Tuesday.
In most of the nation, lowering the ozone level would be achievable within about five years, the EPA estimates, using air-pollution scrubbers in some factories and other readily available technology. But in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and much of the Central Valley, as well as the most polluted counties outside the state, the obstacles would be formidable and then some. L.A. is supposed to meet the current level by 2032, which will require a 75% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions from vehicles. A further reduction would entail a move to near-zero emissions from mobile sources — trucks, planes, trains and automobiles, the primary polluters. The EPA admits that would require actions that can't fully be defined at this point and for which better technology might have to be developed.
Yet lowering ozone standards isn't just a moral and legal imperative — the Clean Air Act mandates healthful air regardless of the cost of attaining it — it's also a smart move economically. The EPA estimates that it would save up to $100 billion in medical expenses and lost work nationwide, more than the cost to industry of meeting stricter requirements.
But in making its decision, the EPA should consider two factors. Some of the smog in the L.A. air basin blows in from China, enough to make a difference of up to 2 ppb of ozone. The region will need federal help in negotiating agreements to eliminate that source.
Worse, the federal government has not adequately addressed its own lax rules regarding the levels of nitrogen oxides emitted by air traffic and the ships, interstate trucking and trains that are the backbone of port operations — major polluters in L.A. State and local governments are powerless to tighten these standards, which are based on average national pollution levels rather than local conditions. If the EPA plans to demand extraordinary clean-air efforts by municipalities, it has to do something about its own role in contributing to unhealthful pollution.
-
Mar 16, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
In western Oklahoma, we’re no strangers to regulatory overreach from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Farmers, ranchers and small businesses are often surprised to find themselves the target of burdensome and downright inefficient regulations.
These regulations range from something as specific as farm fuel tank permitting requirements to vastly prohibitive restrictions on the electric plants that power our homes.
Government intrusion into America’s energy and agricultural sectors reverberates into our everyday lives in the form of higher food prices or monthly energy bills. Stagnant wages and underemployment have only exacerbated this problem for families trying to make ends meet.
The science behind EPA regulations is as important as the money they siphon from our economy. Science and data are invaluable tools in helping us navigate complex policy issues, and when the economic cost of these regulations reaches into tens of millions of dollars, we need to get it right.
The Science Advisory Board (SAB) is a panel of independent experts that reviews the science behind EPA rules which potentially impact the lives of millions of Americans. The heavy costs of these regulations should warrant some degree of public oversight and an assurance that this board’s findings are free from bias – not provided by a set of handpicked advisers.
Shortcomings with the process have come up recently, including limited public participation, interference with expert advice and possible conflicts of interest. These are alarming signs for an organization whose reputation stems from impartiality.
This week the House will vote on a bill I introduced to address these issues and ensure the science guiding EPA’s regulatory policy is objective, open and balanced.
The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act prevents the agency from using this advisory board to simply sign off on their regulatory agenda by empowering the board to listen to outside expertise. State and private experts sometimes have the greatest knowledge on issues. However, too often they are locked out of this process entirely. This should be reason enough to implement transparency measures to this board.
In fact, during most SAB meetings participation from the public is limited, if not entirely absent, and there is essentially no avenue for interested parties to comment on the scope of the board’s reviews. Some of the members who serve on the panel have even made public statements advocating specific policy positions on the same issues they are tasked with providing unbiased scientific advice.
Partisan inclinations should play no role in EPA’s science. And actively shutting out certain unpopular viewpoints is a disservice to scientific integrity and the public. My proposal requires members to disclose potential conflicts of interest and makes them available for public review.
For an agency that consistently shrugs off Congressional oversight efforts, the significance of SAB’s role cannot be overstated. Opposition to our proposal’s goal to shine light on the board’s review process is merely an excuse to defend the advisory board’s obstructionist and partisan status quo.
This is a good-government bill, one that can help restore credibility and trust in a federal agency that has lost much of it. Disagreements on scientific conclusions should not occur on the House floor, and this legislation will ensure the best experts are free to undertake an open and honest review of EPA’s regulatory science.
Lucas has represented congressional districts in western Oklahoma since 1994. He sits on the Agriculture and Financial Services committees and is vice chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
-
Week Ahead: GOP Spotlight on EPA Rules, Crude Oil Ban
Mar 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
House Republicans will hold a slate of hearings challenging some of the Obama administration's main environmental rules.
The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on energy and power is planning a Tuesday hearing to attack the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed carbon rules for power plants.
The hearing will focus on what the subpanel, chaired by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), sees as major legal and cost issues with the proposal.
The star witness for Republicans will be Laurence Tribe, a Harvard University Law School professor who once taught President Obama and later served as his adviser.
In comments commissioned by coal giant Peabody Energy Corp., Tribe last year challenged the EPA’s legal grounding for the rule. Other legal experts and representatives from states will also testify.
Also Tuesday, the Science, Space and Technology Committee will challenge the EPA’s proposal to reduce ground-level ozone in a hearing entitled “Reality Check: The Impact and Achievability of EPA’s Proposed Ozone Standards.”
The committee will hear from air quality and health experts, in addition to business leaders.
Republicans have not opposed the EPA’s final rule on coal ash disposal as vocally as some of the Obama administrations’ other environmental rules. But they have proposed legislation they say would increase certainty for utilities and other businesses dealing with the rule.
That bill will get a hearing before a House Energy and Commerce subpanel on Wednesday.
The energy subpanel of Energy and Commerce will meet Thursday to discuss a bill to delay efficiency standards for grid-connected water heaters.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee is planning a Thursday hearing on the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the panel’s chairwoman, has made it a priority to find ways to loosen the ban with domestic oil production at historic levels.
That committee will also hold a Tuesday hearing on innovation in the electric grid.
Committees all over Capitol Hill will be busy next week with a full slate of hearings on specific agencies’ budget requests for fiscal 2016.
The hearings will look in detail at requests from the Energy Department, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the EPA and many other agencies.
-
Gore: ‘Put a Price’ on Climate Skepticism
Mar 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Former Vice President Gore said politicians should be punished politically if they don’t agree with the scientific consensus on climate change.
Gore, who has become a climate activist since leaving office, said charging companies to emit carbon dioxide would help the transition away from fossil fuels in a presentation at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. But he added that politicians must be pressured to act.
“We need to put a price on carbon to accelerate these market trends,” Gore said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “And in order to do that, we need to put a price on denial in politics.”
Gore’s presentation focused on the politics of climate change, highlighting major events that he said were caused in part by a warming planet.
“We have this denial industry cranked up constantly,” he said, according to the Tribune. “In addition to 99 percent of the scientists and all the professional scientific organizations, now Mother Nature is weighing in.”
Extreme weather and the conflict in the Middle East are exacerbated by climate change, Gore said.
He also cited religious leaders, saying that climate skeptics disagree with Pope Francis.
“How about this Pope?” he said, showing a photo of Francis, who is planning an encyclical later this year to encourage all Catholics to take steps against climate change. “I’m not a Catholic, but I could be persuaded to become one.”
-
Greens Meet With White House on Oil-By-Rail Safety Rule
Mar 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
One week after railroad industry players pressed the White House not to require more sophisticated braking systems in the upcoming oil train safety rule, green groups used their own meeting on Friday last week to urge that the much-anticipated DOT regulation be strengthened.
ForestEthics, one of the environmental groups that attended an Office of Management Budget meeting on DOT's forthcoming oil train rule, made the case that the analysis underlying the proposal downplays the economic and environmental risk of crude-by-rail incidents estimated to occur while the industry is permitted to phase out aging tank cars from fossil-fuel fleets.
"The trends and track record over the past 3 years demonstrate that DOT has underestimated both the incidence of oil train disasters and the hardships they would bring," Matt Krogh, ForestEthics campaign director, wrote in notes prepared for the meeting. "In predicting how many disasters will occur, DOT focused on all trains, not just unit trains carrying crude oil in defective tank cars, downplayed the most representative years since 2012, and assumed the CPC-1232 tank cars would dramatically reduce the accident rate." -
DOT Quietly Floats Overhaul for Aging U.S. Oil Pipeline Network
Mar 16, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Mike Lee
Almost two years after an Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline split open and sent Canadian crude flowing through a neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark., federal regulators have quietly proposed a sweeping rewrite of oil pipeline safety rules.
If the proposal is finalized in its current form, as much as 95 percent of the U.S. pipelines that carry crude, gasoline and other liquids -- 182,000 miles -- would be subject to the new rules and about half the system may have to undergo extensive tests to prove it can operate safely, according to information from the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
The plan, known as the Hazardous Liquids Integrity Verification Process, is an implicit acknowledgment that some of the oil industry's testing technology isn't sophisticated enough to detect cracks or corrosion in time to prevent a pipeline's failure. And for the first time since PHMSA was created, it may wind up telling companies they have to replace certain aging pipelines.
The oil and pipeline industries are already lobbying against the idea, saying PHMSA has overstepped its legal mandate. The types of tests that PHMSA wants to require are expensive and in some cases do more damage than they prevent, said John Stoody, vice president of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines.
Richard Kuprewicz, an engineer who specializes in pipeline safety, said the rules could provide more protection for people who live near pipelines.
"If the technical level of sophistication stays in the final regulations and isn't watered down, the answer would be definitely 'Yes,'" he said.
PHMSA has been struggling for years with the rapid runup in oil and gas production driven by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in shale. The amount of crude pumped in the United States has jumped nearly two-thirds in the past five years, forcing companies to re-plumb the North American pipeline network.
In places like North Dakota, there aren't enough pipelines to move all the newly found oil, so it's being shipped in mile-long trains. The tanker trains have been involved in a string of accidents in the United States and Canada, and PHMSA has been working on new regulations to keep rail cars from exploding when they derail.
The bulk of oil, gasoline, diesel and other fuels -- which PHMSA lumps together as "hazardous liquids" -- is still shipped by pipeline, though, and the U.S. pipeline network is showing its age. Half of the oil and liquids pipelines in the country were built before 1970, according to PHMSA, and companies are continually reversing pipelines to serve new markets or converting pipelines to carry new products.
PHMSA hasn't done much to publicize the pipeline safety proposal and hasn't published either a proposed rule or an advance notice of a proposed rulemaking. Nothing about the Hazardous Liquids Integrity Verification Process appears during a routine search of the agency's website. EnergyWire obtained a PowerPoint presentation and other documents about the proposal from DOT's regulatory docket.
PHMSA declined to make any of its officials available for interviews over a five-day period and wouldn't answer written questions on the record -- even though the agency has already briefed two oil industry trade associations about the proposal.Pressure testing
The biggest change in the proposal would be in how operators determine a pipe's maximum operating pressure -- the level beyond which it can start to leak. It's a crucial number because a pipeline's pressure determines how much product it can transport.
Ideally, the owner of a pipeline would be able to verify a pipe's safe pressure with documents showing how it was constructed and how it was tested before it went into service. Most new pipelines are hydrostatically tested -- meaning they're filled with water and pressurized to see whether they leak.
[+] Aerial view of fire from the Carmichael, Miss., explosion showing nearby destroyed houses. Photo courtesy of the National Transportation Safety Board.
But a safe pressure can't be verified on a good portion of the pipeline network. Since the 1990s, PHMSA has been allowing companies to use a combination of engineering calculations and tests with inline instruments known as "pigs" or "smart pigs" to determine the pressure.
The pipeline industry prefers pigs over other types of tests because they're relatively cheap and fast -- meaning pipes don't have to be shut down very long. They use magnets, X-rays and other technology to measure the pipe's thickness and check for problems.
A string of pipeline accidents, including the Mayflower spill and a deadly 2007 explosion in Carmichael, Miss., have shown the limits of the current system.
Both of those lines were built with a type of longitudinally welded pipe that's prone to cracks and corrosion, as is about a fourth of the U.S. oil and liquids network. The National Transportation Safety Board has been warning PHMSA and its predecessor agencies about the dangers of the tubing, known as low-frequency electric resistance welded (ERW) pipe, since an explosion that killed five people in Whitharral, Texas, in 1976.
PHMSA and its predecessor agencies typically deferred any final action.A deadly turnaround
Then came the accident in Carmichael on Nov. 1, 2007, on the Dixie Pipeline. The section of the 12-inch line that burst was manufactured in 1961, according to the NTSB. It was transporting liquid propane at a pressure of about 1,405 pounds per square inch when a 52-foot gash opened along the length of the pipe at about 10:35 a.m.
The pipe released 430,000 gallons of propane. About four minutes after the rupture, a resident in a house about 500 feet from the pipeline called 911 to report smelling gas and seeing a white cloud in the area, according to the NTSB report. Seven minutes after the rupture, the cloud of gas ignited, causing an explosion and a fire that burned until the next day.
Two people were killed -- including the victim who had called 911 -- and seven people were injured.
The pipe had been inspected with inline tools in 2005 and 2006, but the tests didn't show any problems near the site of the 2007 rupture.
In 2009, the NTSB recommended that PHMSA conduct a comprehensive review of ERW pipe, including whether inline testing was effective enough at finding cracks and other problems to prevent future ruptures.
The study was still underway when the Pegasus line ruptured in March 2013, sending 5,000 barrels of oil coursing through the streets of a small subdivision.
Like the Dixie Pipeline, the Pegasus line had been inspected with inline tools before it ruptured.Testing more pipelines
About seven months after the Pegasus accident, the PHMSA report on ERW pipeline was finalized. It found that although inline tests could find some dents and cracks in a pipeline, they aren't sensitive enough to classify those problems and predict when a pipe may fail.
PHMSA's solution -- the Hazardous Liquids Integrity Verification Process -- would go beyond the ERW pipelines and include most pipelines in urban or other high-consequence areas, and lines carrying highly volatile liquids, such as propane. It would also include pipelines that run in the right of way for highways or arterial roads.
Pipelines that can adequately prove their maximum operating pressure would be allowed to keep operating. PHMSA estimates that operators would have to re-prove the maximum operating pressure for about 98,100 miles of pipeline, according to its presentation.
"The question is -- do we really have 50 to 60 years' worth of historical documents showing us the health of the pipeline?" said Brigham McCown, a former administrator at PHMSA who reviewed the presentation.
The document lays out a range of options for determining the safe pressure. At the top of the list is hydrostatic pressure testing. In some cases, operators may be required to do "spike" tests -- pressurizing the pipe past its prescribed limits to see if it holds.Requiring replacement
The list also includes replacement, which is something PHMSA has rarely recommended in the past.
Just mentioning a requirement to replace pipelines is a change in posture for PHMSA, McCown said. Up to now, pipeline regulations have been performance-based -- if a company could repair a piece of pipe and demonstrate that it met the regulations, it was allowed to keep operating.
"PHMSA doesn't tell people they have to replace pipe," McCown said.
It's not clear how often pressure testing or replacement would be required. The list of options also includes lowering a pipeline's operating pressure or doing engineering calculations to determine its safe operating pressure.
But the oil industry is already questioning the need for more tests. Pressure-testing thousands of miles of pipe would not only disrupt the energy business, it could also damage the pipelines, said Stoody, with the pipeline association.
"If you do it for too long, you actually burst the pipe or you actually cause cracks," he said.
And forcing the industry to replace pipelines would cost billions of dollars, which could divert companies from their main focus, which is protecting pipelines in urban or other sensitive areas, Stoody said.
"If you're spending money replacing good pipe, that's money you didn't spend somewhere else," he said.
The pipeline association and the American Petroleum Association also questioned the legal basis for the rules in a joint letter. Congress explicitly told PHMSA to require pressure testing of gas pipelines when it rewrote the pipeline safety laws in 2011.
That was in the wake of Pacific Gas & Electric's 2010 explosion on a gas pipeline in San Bruno, Calif., which killed eight people.
Congress didn't impose a similar mandate on oil and liquids pipelines, the two trade associations said.
Kuprewicz, the safety engineer, said PHMSA has plenty of legal authority to impose new tests on the pipeline industry.
James Hall, a former NTSB chairman who's now a transportation consultant, said the trade groups' position is shortsighted.
Oil transportation is a growing business, and pipelines are the safest way to move those products, he said. If the industry can't demonstrate its safety, it could wind up like the railroad industry, which is under intense pressure from the public and from regulators because of the string of oil-train accidents.
"The smart players are the safe players in the pipeline industry," Hall said. "They're ones who make the investment up front and don't have the embarrassment of continually having to pay claims and bear the moral responsibility of deaths and injuries from pipeline accidents."
Correction: The photo was originally said to be from Mayflower, Ark., explosion. It has been corrected to say it was from an explosion in Carmichael, Miss.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
Add recipients
Suggested