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(ACC Mentioned) SPI Touts International Plastics Recycling Efforts
Mar 24, 2015 | Recycling Today
SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, Washington, D.C., has outlined ways it supports “sustainability programs that promote recycling and recovery of plastics materials, while conserving resources in manufacturing through established best practices and educational campaigns.” -
(ACC Mentioned) De Vos, Broome want to Bridge Generation Gap
Mar 24, 2015 | Plastics News
By Bill Bregar
These are challenging times for trade associations, and the Society of Plastics Engineers is no exception. -
(ACC Mentioned) Consumer Prices See First Gain Since Oct.
Mar 24, 2015 | Investor's Business Daily
The consumer price index rose 0.2% in Feb., snapping a string of monthly declines. The index is still lower for the year, at -0.1%. Core CPI, which strips out the volatile food and energy components, rose 0.2%, a tick more than expected, and the same as in Jan. It stands 1.7% higher vs. year-ago levels, up from 1.6% in Jan., and moving in the right direction toward the Fed's 2% target. -
US States Attack Federal TSCA Reform Bill
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A bipartisan Senate bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) (CW 10 March 2015) “presents an immediate threat” to California's Safer Consumer Products programme, according to the state Environmental Protection Agency. -
US EPA Releases Risk Assessment for N-Methylpyrrolidone
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A chemical, commonly used to remove paint and other coatings, poses risks to pregnant women and women of childbearing age who have high exposure, according to a final risk assessment released by the US EPA. -
EPA Finds Health Risks from Paint-Stripper Compound
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
A chemical used in paint stripping and industrial cleaning operations is likely to cause health problems under certain exposure scenarios, according to a new U.S. EPA report. -
US EPA Revokes Snur for Two Substances
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is revoking the significant new use rule (Snur), issued for two chemical substances identified generically as metal salts of complex inorganic oxyacids. -
Common Herbicide Used In Monsanto’s Roundup Deemed ‘Probably Carcinogenic’
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The widely used herbicide glyphosate, sold by Monsanto as Roundup, is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” concludes an evaluation by the World Health Organization’s cancer arm—the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). -
Products that Contain Asbestos Should be Regulated and Labeled
Mar 24, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
If a product you were thinking of buying contained asbestos, chances are you’d want to know while you were in the store, say, by reading a warning on the item’s label. -
Caller Threatened to 'Shut Down the Power Grid' with Computer Virus
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
An unknown caller threatened to unleash a cyber weapon on a Vermont electric utility this December, federal records show. -
Coal-Heavy States Explore Carbon-Cutting Options with Support from National Governors Association
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Utah's political leaders are unequivocal about their position on U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan -- they're not fans. -
Texas Town Rejects New Well Rules as Industry Lashes out against Local Control
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Mike Lee
City leaders here turned down a proposal to expand the buffer between gas wells and surrounding homes, as the oil industry broadened its push to limit local governments' ability to regulate energy development. -
Green Ads Hit Vulnerable GOP Senators for Climate Votes
Mar 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A green group is running advertisements hitting two vulnerable Republican senators for votes that support a “big polluter agenda.” -
Analysis Group's Tierney Discusses Existing State Tools for Ensuring Reliability under Clean Power Plan
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E TV
As the voices of concern over the Clean Power Plan's impact on grid reliability grow louder, do states have the ability to ensure reliability in their compliance plans by using tools currently at their disposal? During today's OnPoint, Susan Tierney, senior adviser at the Analysis Group, explains why she believes reliability issues will be solved as stakeholders proceed "in parallel" with compliance. -
Bill to Yank Fuels from Cap and Trade Fails, but Questions Remain on Reality of CO2 Reductions
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Anne C. Mulkern
Legislation that would have retroactively exempted motor fuels from the mandates of California's cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions was rejected yesterday by a state Assembly committee. -
Inhofe in no Rush to Confirm EPA Nominees
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
Sen. James Inhofe isn't in a hurry to get President Obama's picks for U.S. EPA on the job.
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(ACC Mentioned) SPI Touts International Plastics Recycling Efforts
Mar 24, 2015 | Recycling Today
SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, Washington, D.C., has outlined ways it supports “sustainability programs that promote recycling and recovery of plastics materials, while conserving resources in manufacturing through established best practices and educational campaigns.” “Appropriate recovery and reuse of plastics materials translates into worldwide business opportunities, underscored by a heathy environment that protects our future generations,” stated William R. Carteaux, SPI’s president and CEO, during a press event at NPE2015: The International Plastics Showcase, held in Orlando, Florida, in late March. SPI hosts the NPE event every three years and announced at this year’s event that it intends to host an annual recycling event, the Re|Focus Recycling Summit & Expo, in the years between NPE exhibitions. The inaugural recycling summit will be April 25-27, 2016, in Orlando. Saying it will work in tandem with its Recycling Committee, SPI says it and other stakeholders will develop sessions focused on the challenges in manufacturing and design, addressing the supply chain, manufacturing, regulatory and labeling issues and corporate culture around sustainability trends. “Re|Focus is truly an industry-supported conference that’s already generated a broad range of interest across the supply chain, encompassing recyclers, brand owners, processors and equipment manufacturers,” said Carteaux at a separate press event at NPE. He said the summit also will include an exhibit hall. Regarding its current international efforts, SPI said it is striving to harmonize plastics machinery safety standards with support from the VDMA, a German engineering federation. The two groups have commissioned a risk assessment study of injection molding machines designed to evaluate the need for a mechanical device or jam bar, a requirement not included in some other national standards. “Our collaborative effort with VDMA, supported by the results of the risk assessment, will enable greater harmonization of plastics machinery standards between the U.S. and Europe, and will help create superior interoperability, efficiency and productivity for our industries in the global marketplace,” Carteaux said at an NPE press conference. SPI also noted it launched Operation Clean Sweep (OCS ), a product stewardship program currently administered in conjunction with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) back in 1992. OCS is designed to promote manufacturing industry housekeeping practices that prevent plastic pellets from entering the world’s waterways. -
(ACC Mentioned) De Vos, Broome want to Bridge Generation Gap
Mar 24, 2015 | Plastics News
By Bill Bregar
These are challenging times for trade associations, and the Society of Plastics Engineers is no exception.People think you can find anything on the Internet, for free — including even technical information about plastics. Young people seem to be glued to their smartphones. How do you get them to come to a technical conference or trade show?
SPE members are talking about these issues, as the society holds its annual technical extravaganza, Antec, this week in Orlando, collocated with NPE 2015. This marks the second NPE/Antec joint effort, after the kickoff at the 2012 NPE.
Antec is every year. NPE, organized by the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc., runs every three years.
SPE CEO Willem De Vos uses the word “tremendous” to describe the relationship.
“We’re looking at doing more and more things together, with SPI,” he said.
How does SPE, built on technical papers, events and volunteer activism, respond to the challenges? How does it face the future? The questions are critical for SPE, which has about 15,000 members today — half as much as in 2000.
But it’s even broader than SPE: The plastics industry, and indeed, all of U.S. manufacturing, are scrambling to get young people interested and involved, as the baby-boom generation begins to retire. SPE, SPI, and a growing number of plastics processors are reaching down into high schools, or even middle schools, to promote the industry.
Bethel, Conn.-based SPE named De Vos as its CEO in January of 2012. He brings an international perspective, and a processor’s viewpoint, to the society. De Vos was CEO of Vitalo Group, a global thermoformer and packaging producer based in Belgium.
“We are still a not-for-profit, but the business practices we are doing today have changed dramatically in the last three years, since I came on board,” De Vos said. “We are operating more like a normal company, where deadlines have to be kept. Where targets are set. Where measurements are done. Where the quality of the service and the products that you have is very important.”
Russell Broome became SPE’s managing director last fall. Broome also has global business experience, at materials companies LNP Engineering Plastics, GE Plastics and PolyOne Corp. He was an engineer handling purchasing at TE Connectivity just before joining SPE.
Both De Vos and Broome are in their 40s — and they can connect both with young people and the older SPE veteran.
Broome, 43, has volunteered for SPE functions for 20 years. He served as SPE president for the 2011-2012 year. Broome started as a student member while in college, and he is a leading advocate for bringing young people to plastics.
Plastics Race
Students and young professionals once again will be able to get into the Plastics Race on March 25, and compete for prizes. The scavenger-hunt-style event will take participants onto the NPE show floor where they will visit exhibitor booths to answer questions.
The following day, students can find out about jobs and internships during a Speed Interview session.
Wim De Vos is 45 — at least through Antec and NPE. His birthday is March 28 — the Saturday after NPE concludes.
One of De Vos’ major goals was revamping SPE’s website, with elements of social media. SPE this week will announce a free “e-membership” allowing some access to its new professional networking site: the chain.4spe.org. Current paying members will now be designated as Premium Members, and will continue to get full access, as well as discounted attendance at seminars and conferences.
De Vos and Broome sat down with senior reporter Bill Bregar last month at the Plastics News Executive Forum in Lake Las Vegas, Nev.
Q: To start Wim, you have emphasized the need to add value to an SPE membership. What do you mean by that? Also the priorities seem to have changed from globalization a few years ago, to now, the emphasis on finding new young people for the plastics industry.
De Vos: Let me make a quite clear statement on everything which is international. When I joined SPE three years ago — and this is the reason why they picked me, as a non-American and someone who had a lot of global experience. Because at that point, the main thing that SPE thought was our problem — because we had lost a lot of members — as the fact that SPE missed what I call the boat of the globalization.
Today I’m clearly saying that this was and is not the problem of SPE. Three years ago we thought, if we go global it’s going to solve all our problems. Today I’m saying, very clearly, no! Do we have to continue our global efforts? Yes. But I am, with the complete team, refocusing on the United States.
Because we have found that globalization is not the problem of SPE. The problem of SPE is bringing value to its members. Specifically to its American members. We have lost members because of the Internet. Because of the fact that people have less time. Because of the fact that the plastics industry is so mature that people are looking into niches.
Q: That’s really interesting. I remember work was flooding to China, and that seemed to push the calls for SPE to become globalized too.
De Vos: And it still is important. So perhaps in 2011 and 2012, internationalization was the number one priority of SPE. Today, for me it is very clearly maybe the number four or five priority. The number one priority of SPE is to bring value to its members. And the value that we used to bring, to our members, has been made void by the Internet. I mean 20, 25 years ago, you had to be a member of a society to have access to a network, and to have access to the newest technical information.
Today, the network is on the Internet and the newest technical information is also on the Internet.
So what we’re developing today with all these new products and all these new things, is again, to bring value. It is to give something to our members that they cannot find elsewhere. And this is the number one priority for SPE.
And there are a couple of other products which we are preparing, that we will bring as a very high value to our members in the next couple of months.
Q: Let’s talk about the next generation of plastics engineers, employees and leaders. It seems like young people just want to communicate online. Russ, is that true? What is your take?
Broome: I think face-to-face collaboration will start to return itself, when the economy picks up and folks are able to start going to conferences and be a part of things more. And the restrictions are lifted. I think that the value of that face to face will be apparent, when it’s been vacant for a while now.
They’ve relied so much on electronic and digital and virtual that I think the appreciation for face to face is starting to come back a little bit.
Q: You’ve said that older and younger people each bring different strengths.
Broome: What we’re doing is trying to link the next generation with the retiring generation. So if you’re going to blend these two groups — and they both want to mentor each other — you have to be willing to adapt. The older guys have to be willing to pick up a smartphone. Likewise, the younger guys have to be willing to meet face to face. So we think by blending those two cultures together you’re going to see more virtual stuff as well as more value on the face to face.
Q: Let’s talk about the Plastics Race. This was a big success at last year’s Antec in Las Vegas, organized by Jaime Gomez and a group of SPE members. They looked for clues on the Vegas Strip. How is the race different now that Antec is in an NPE year?
Broome: We’re doing a lot of networking with, especially college students. The Plastics Race is the perfect example. The reason behind that is to get the college students interacting with industry.
It was so successful the first time in Vegas that we’ve taken it up a notch, and now we’re running with a hundred boots on the NPE floor. Instead of the Vegas Strip, they’re running the scavenger hunt on the floor of NPE. And there’s an app on the smartphone where they’ll be scanning QR codes instead of doing it all on paper. At 10 o’clock on Tuesday morning, they start scanning QR codes in booths. And it’ll pop up a question on their phone that a team of four will have to collaborate and work with the people in that booth to have to answer the question.
De Vos: People in the participating booths can decide on their question. So you can decide on the question that will be asked when they scan your QR code on your booth. So they have to interact with you or with your people, on the booth.
Broome: That’s an example of using the new technology and it has to have face to face interaction at the booth.
Q: OK, Wim tell us about the SPE website. You are launching The Chain as a social media site.
De Vos: The Chain is an online communication discussion collaboration platform. You have to consider it a little bit as a LinkedIn. However, we were not 100 percent satisfied with LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn has a lot of advertisement. You just become a member, and everybody can post whatever they want.
So what we did is something a bit different. First of all, the name, The Chain comes from the polymer chain. Basically what you will see at Antec, is a green fellow walking around. His name is Linky. He makes the link. He’s one of the links in the chain. And he will be main feature at our booth, also. So we will have some green people walking around.
You know, we see all these young people networking in different way than we are. So we said let’s try to come up with something that could be a professional networking system for the younger people. Rather than them discussing on Facebook what kind of drink they have, or rather than on LinkedIn, someone posting his resume and say hey guys I’m looking for a job, we have in this system split out everything different places.
Q: Walk us through it.
De Vos: The main place is called Tech Talk. Now, Tech Talk is a moderated platform — and the name “moderated” is very important here — where you can have technical discussions.
Q: So can I do this, as a non-member?
De Vos: Yes, and no. You need to simply have a login. Once you create your login, you can access. Anyone can log on but not get the entire platform.
So then we have the SPE Café. You should consider it as more a little bit as the Facebook. Where people can simply chat with each other about anything they like. So of course, this is not moderated. You want discuss, “Hey are you going to that conference? Yeah, I will be there as well. Let’s get together for dinner.” Or something like that, you can do it here.
Then we have Leadership Lane. Leadership Lane is only for the leaders of the society. You know we have about 100 chapters, about 70 regional chapters and 30 technical divisions And every board or committee of our chapters will have its own “closed” place to communicate and store data. It’s a nice central location.
And then the other place is Career Central. Which is basically everything related to jobs. So you want to post your resume? Post it there. You’re looking to hire someone, as a company? Post it there. So with this, we are absorbing what LinkedIn is doing.
We believe that in the future the number of ‘places’ will be growing. As an example if there are many discussions on a certain topic, let’s take composites, we will then create a ‘Tech Talk Composites’ and so on.
So we are splitting it out. People who only want real technical discussions go to here (He clicks on the site on his laptop). And this is what is moderated.
Q: The Chain went live on Jan. 6, right?
De Vos: Yes. And in the first eight weeks’ time, about 3,000 people signed up.
Q: Wim, earlier you mentioned changes going on at SPE. Can you give us some more insights?
De Vos: I will be a little bit black and white in this statement. When I joined the society, I found a society which hadn‘t changed in 25 years. It was my job to tell the people in the leadership — guys, we need to catch up, with all the things which have happened. They realized that globalization was one of the things they needed to do, that’s why they attracted me, who is a non-American to do that.
But everything which was linked to the Internet. I mean we had a completely outdated website. We almost didn’t do anything. If you look now, for instance, in the last couple of years. The website is mobile responsive, easy to navigate and searchable, with all data stored in one location. The Chain, also has a mobile app. You can communicate in The Chain through an app. So on your mobile device you can do that. But not only that, we have our magazine, Plastics Engineering, in an app. So you can read everything on the plane because everything is loaded in your smartphone or in your tablet.
We have an events app, where basically all our conferences are on there. All the papers and the presentations can be found, and the people presenting them.
Change needed to happen. And this change is on all the levels. It’s on the service provided to our members. It’s on the service we provide internally to our groups. It’s on the governance structure, which we’re still working on. I mean, we were like the Titanic! And we still are a big boat. I mean, today the wind is changing every day so you need to be able to adapt the ship. If you’re on the Titanic you’re just moving in one direction. And these are things that we have changed considerably, and we continue to change.
Broome: You have to adapt to the changing needs of your customers.
Q: I know that all trade associations face difficult challenges.
De Vos: At the end of the ‘90s SPE had about 35,000 members. It went down to below 14,000 and today we are somewhere around 15,000. So we have been able to stop the decrease in membership in the last couple of years. We have a small growth. And we expect a much bigger growth in the next couple of years, because of all of the things we are doing are now really coming on stream.
Q: Does SPE still want to get all its technical papers and conference presentations online?
De Vos: We are still in the process of finalizing that. If you go do on our technical library, it is all fully searchable. You put in the word. For instance, you search “composites.” (He clicks the icon on his laptop). And there are 907 papers in there with the word composites in it. It goes back to 1996. All these papers have been loaded in one central place, and you can see them, by topic.
Q: That’s pretty ambitious. Is it “done” yet?
De Vos: No it’s never going to be “done,” because we have, every year, 40 conferences around the world. And we are uploading all these papers and all these presentations six months after the conference. This is only available to members.
Q: One major announcement at Antec will be creation of member categories of Premium and E-Members. Can you explain?
De Vos: Well, it’s linked to The Chain, because we want people like you, and everybody else in the world, to participate in The Chain. Because of this, we will have a new member type which is an E-Member. The E-Membership will be free. With limited benefits.
Broome: E-Members won’t have access to the technical library. But they’ll have access to The Chain, and by seeing through these technical discussions, it may prompt them to become a premium member. But it opens up the collaboration.
De Vos: We’re trying to address what we talked about when we started this conversation, that a lot of things are free online. So the first step that SPE is taking today, is to have an E-Membership, which is free. So that at least, the people who join, for free, start to see all the things we have to offer. A limited number of things they will already have access to, for free.
Our current members will be called Premium Members. So these Premium members will have discounts at conferences, they will receive Plastics Engineering magazine, in print and online. For Premium Members, the average discount at a conference is $100. Our membership price, depending if you do early bird, it’s between $109 and $129 dollars. So that means one discount on one conference and your membership is paid. They have access to the member directory. They have access to the technical library. And there are a couple of other benefits which they will only be getting as a Premium Member.
We will see how this evolves in the future.
Q: Tell us about the thinking and planning behind these moves.
De Vos: In the end, we’re not copying, but we’re looking at business models like Facebook and LinkedIn. They are also for free. These people live from other revenues. So we’ll have to see in the far future ahead how this evolves for us. But our mission is to support the industry with knowledge on new technologies, on new materials on new innovations. And for the less amount of money we can do this, the better. If in the future we will be able to do this all for free, we will do it. But we need to make sure that our operational costs are covering by some income stream. In the past this has always been membership dues.
Q: Wow that is a pretty bold statement. But I know you have said that membership dues have changed as a percent of the total SPE budget.
De Vos: I’m not sure about this statement, but I would guess that 25 years ago, membership dues were between 60 and 70 percent of the society’s income. Today membership dues are less than 40 percent of our income. I could see this evolving towards zero. Maybe in the next decade.
Q: If it was zero, where would the money come from?
De Vos: Well, if you look to LinkedIn and Facebook, they also have no membership dues. They make money on advertising, they have a lot of other revenue sources.
Q: Now let’s turn to Russ. It’s interesting that you began as a student member. Why did you want to take the SPE job?
Broome: I’ve had a passion for SPE since I was a student, and I always found it a challenge when I was in the corporate world, and volunteering for SPE, that I never got to spend enough time that I wanted to for SPE. And then I had rose through the ranks at the society, did my year as president, and I had to go off and decompress for a year-and-a-half or so. And I actually started missing the camaraderie and everything that goes along with SPE.
And when Gail Bristol’s retirement came up, just a few months after that, it all clicked. Why couldn’t I do this, and be able to spend 100 percent of my time on SPE, where my passion is, instead of a job and volunteering for SPE. So I saw it as an opportunity to do 100 percent of my time where my passion was.
What Wim has been able to do for the society in taking it to more of a business operating outlook, that made the job even more interesting. Because if it was the old association, I probably wouldn’t have made that move. But I saw SPE moving in the direction that I wanted to be in.
Q: Russ and Wim, talk about some of the things SPE is doing to interest young people.
De Vos: We are completely revamping the PlastiVan program. We used to have one teacher. We now have three. We’re looking to expand that. We’re looking to have five, six, seven teachers all over the U.S., meaning we could do five times more with the PlastiVan than we could do last year or two years ago. This is geared toward middle school and high school.
Broome: It all goes back to us trying to benefit the industry. If we can get kids interested in working in our industry at that age, then we have their attention when they’re getting ready to make the college decision.
And that’s another big focus: I’m building efforts around freshmen scholarships. Traditionally — and that’s another thing of change — SPE has provided scholarships for kids that are already in college, to reward students that are in plastics programs and doing well. Our renewed focus is, let’s go after more kids in the programs to start with. So a renewed focus is going to be made on freshmen scholarships, to actually get them from high school into a plastics education. It’s a renewed focus from SPE to address the workforce shortage that you hear so much about every day. And the whole idea is, at the end of the day, we need more people entering our industry, into plastics and manufacturing.
Q: How would the new scholarships work?
Broome: We have that core group of universities that have the plastics programs, and we’re going to work with them and other partners to get seed money to offer scholarships specifically to graduating high school seniors, to get them into these programs.
It’s how you tie in the PlastiVan. We already have a vehicle talking to those kids and their parents of the kids who are having to make a decision of what college do I go to? What am I going to study?
Q: Let’s end with the globalization of plastics, and of SPE as well.
Broome: We’re actively participating with PAL, the Plastics Association Leaders, which I think [SPI CEO] Bill Carteaux put together. It’s all the plastic associations. The leaders come together and talk about issues, talk about strategies and how we can help each other.
De Vos: Our mission is very similar between SPE and SPI, because in the end we both support the industry.
Q: What about groups outside of North America?
De Vos: Let’s start by talking about partnerships. We both have started to work more and more with other SPI-type of associations around the world. For instance, we have started now to talk with Plastics Europe, which is the counterpart of the American Chemistry Council and SPI in Europe. We’re going to have the first event together — which is a plastics and polymers innovation award — for all of Europe. And we will start supporting each other’s events from now on.
We also support GPCA — the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemical Association — in the Middle East. We held the first Antec in Dubai last year. They support our conference. We support their conference. And we’re currently exploring how to do more, together.
These are only a few examples of partnerships that we’re trying to make around the world.
Q: And in 2013, SPE held a Polyolefin Plastics Arabia conference in Oman. That was SPE’s first conference in the Middle East. And you held a pair of two-day events in China.
De Vos: Yes. We started doing more Antecs outside of the U.S. So there’s an Antec planned in Brussels in Sept. 8-9 of 2015. There will be a new Antec in Dubai on January of 2016. That’s the second one in Dubai.
Q: And of course, India is important for SPE. SPE’s president for 2013-2014 is Vijay Boolani, from India. The society held its first Antec in India in 2012.
De Vos: We’re going to do another Antec in India, in Mumbai, in 2016.
Q: Well, thanks a lot Wim and Russ. Do you want to make any closing remarks?
De Vos: SPE needs to make sure that we remain relevant for our industry. And to remain relevant. Again, number one is to make sure that people find value in what you give them. And the number two is that you are more relevant if you are a global organization than if you are a regional organization.
So being international does still play a role. But if you have nothing to offer, and you’re global, you’re going to die. If you have a lot to offer and you’re regional, you’ll survive.
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(ACC Mentioned) Consumer Prices See First Gain Since Oct.
Mar 24, 2015 | Investor's Business Daily
The consumer price index rose 0.2% in Feb., snapping a string of monthly declines. The index is still lower for the year, at -0.1%. Core CPI, which strips out the volatile food and energy components, rose 0.2%, a tick more than expected, and the same as in Jan. It stands 1.7% higher vs. year-ago levels, up from 1.6% in Jan., and moving in the right direction toward the Fed's 2% target.
• A leading economic indicator from the American Chemistry Council was flat in March, following a 0.1% increase in Feb. The Chemical Activity Barometer was up 3% vs. year-ago levels, down from a 3.5% yearly gain in Feb.
• U.S. manufacturing rebounded in March, according to Markit's flash PMI, which rose to 55.3 from 54.3. New orders rose at the fastest pace in 5 months, despite a decline in export sales.
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US States Attack Federal TSCA Reform Bill
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A bipartisan Senate bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) (CW 10 March 2015) “presents an immediate threat” to California's Safer Consumer Products programme, according to the state Environmental Protection Agency.
The programme aims to reduce toxic chemicals in consumer products, said Matthew Rodriguez, California EPA secretary for Environmental Protection. But in a letter to senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat-California), who has introduced her own TSCA reform bill into Congress (CW 13 March 2013), he said the preemption provisions in the bipartisan bill (S 697) would “prevent California from fully implementing this important law”.
California regulators will start a rulemaking soon on the first three priority products, identified under the Safer Consumer Product Regulations (CW 15 December 2014).
The bipartisan bill, which has 18 co-sponsors, half of them Democrats, also “eliminates state authority to enact new protections on the most dangerous chemicals, with no required timeline for federal protections,” said Mr Rodriguez, and does away with the “traditional and efficacious co-enforcement of health safeguards”.
Although it contains language relating to the preservation of certain state laws, the “general text” is in conflict with other provisions that would have broad preemptive effects. “These conflicts would support the argument that state action is forbidden,” he said, “even though certain sections allow such action, causing confusion in states over what is allowed.”
In contrast, Ms Boxer's legislation preserves states' rights to pass and enforce chemical safety laws, Mr Rodriguez said.
Meanwhile, six state attorneys general have also come out publicly against S 697, saying it broadly expands “limitations on the ability of states to take appropriate action under state laws” to protect their citizens from risks posed by toxic chemicals. If passed, they say, the measure would prevent states from acting on a chemical deemed by the US EPA to be a “high priority” for federal review, even before any federal restrictions are imposed.
“As a result a void would be created, where states would be prevented from acting to protect their citizens from those chemicals, even though federal restrictions may not be in place for many years.”
Writing to Ms Boxer and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (Republican-Oklahoma), the attorneys general, who represent New York, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Oregon and Washington, say the bill also eliminates the co-enforcement provision in current law that allows states to adopt and enforce state restrictions that are identical to federal regulations.
The bill would also abolish the “key” existing provision that allows states to ban in-state use of dangerous chemicals, say the attorneys general.
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US EPA Releases Risk Assessment for N-Methylpyrrolidone
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A chemical, commonly used to remove paint and other coatings, poses risks to pregnant women and women of childbearing age who have high exposure, according to a final risk assessment released by the US EPA.
The assessment of n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) focused on exposures scenarios for those groups, “because the most sensitive health effects, selected for use in the risk assessment, affect the foetus,” it said.
“Adverse developmental outcomes can arise from acute or repeated exposures, during critical windows of development, at any time during pregnancy; pregnancy can occur any time during women’s reproductive years and exposures can result in persistent chronic adverse effects.” So the risk assessment was based on developmental toxicity, associated with acute and repeated exposures.
The agency “assumed that exposures that do not result in unacceptable risks for these specific life stages would also be protective of others, including children, for other adverse outcomes.” The EPA does not expect that of adult males to reach levels that would be associated with reproductive effects or other systemic toxicity.
Acute and chronic risks for women of childbearing age, who use NMP for less than four hours per day, may be reduced by use of specific types of chemical-resistant gloves, the agency said. However, gloves and respirators do not adequately reduce risks when use is above four hours per day on a single day or repeatedly, over a succession of days.
Because NMP has a low hazard profile for ecological receptors and low persistence and bioaccumulation, the agency did not evaluate potential risks to the environment, associated with releases of the chemical from paint stripping activities, as part of this assessment.
The chemical is a common alternative to methylene chloride, also known as dichloromethane (DCM), a chemical-based paint and coating remover.
The EPA has also identified risks associated with this, during the removal of paint and other coatings. The agency is considering a range of voluntary and regulatory actions to reduce risks for both chemicals.
It recommends finding safer chemicals, or taking precautions that can reduce exposures, such as using the product outside in a well-ventilated area, and wearing appropriate protection.
The agency said that there is no data on use of NMP-based paint strippers that would allow for a reliable estimate of the size of the affected population. However, it is expected that its use is less common than DCM-based strippers, so, therefore, the number of potentially exposed people. The number of workers using DCM-based strippers was estimated to be 230,000.
This is the fifth final risk assessment, released by the EPA under its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) work plan.
“It is a reminder that as we evaluate these risks, it is very clear that our nation’s chemical laws are in much need of reform,” said Jim Jones, EPA assistant administrator, of the need to update the 40-year-old TSCA. “Completing this assessment will now trigger a process to address these unacceptable risks.”
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EPA Finds Health Risks from Paint-Stripper Compound
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
A chemical used in paint stripping and industrial cleaning operations is likely to cause health problems under certain exposure scenarios, according to a new U.S. EPA report.
The agency yesterday released a final risk assessment that determined after an agency review of scientific research on N-Methylpyrrolidone, or NMP, that the chemical poses a threat to pregnant women and women of childbearing age if protective measures are not used because it can harm the reproductive system.
Protective measures include wearing chemical-resistant gloves, but gloves alone do not adequately reduce the hazard of exposure to NMP if the chemical is used for more than four hours, the agency said.
NMP is used extensively in the United States, with about 184 million pounds per year produced or imported into the country, according to EPA. The agency says consumers can avoid exposure to NMP by wearing gloves when using paint-stripper products containing NMP and using fans to ventilate indoor areas where the chemical is being used. If ventilation is not possible, the agency said, hiring a professional firm with proper protective equipment may be appropriate.
EPA said it did not evaluate what kind of gloves are effective, though it believes that only certain kinds can protect consumers from exposure to NMP. The agency noted that California regulators have recommended that consumers use only butyl rubber or laminated polyethylene gloves because they believe other gloves are not effective enough.
In a fact sheet posted on its website, EPA said it had made no decision about what regulatory action is necessary to reduce Americans' exposure to NMP.
"By completing this assessment, we have taken an important step in protecting pregnant women and women of childbearing age who are using NMP to remove paint," said Jim Jones, EPA's assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, in a statement. "It is a reminder that as we evaluate these risks, it is very clear that our nation's chemical laws are in much need of reform. Completing this assessment will now trigger a process to address these unacceptable risks."
NMP was identified on EPA's list of work plan chemicals in 2012. The work plan is a system the agency established to prioritize how it should review the safety of existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.
Though the agency says it is attempting to make use of its authorities under existing law, completing a final risk assessment does not require the agency to take regulatory action regarding a chemical, nor does it set a legal deadline for it to implement protective measures. The agency had 90 chemicals on its work plan chemicals list in a recent update and has not started risk assessments on most of them -- a process that can take years.
NMP is sometimes used in place of another paint stripper called methylene chloride, which is also known as dichloromethane, or DCM. That chemical was also the subject of a final risk assessment the agency released last year, which found that workers exposed directly and indirectly to DCM were likely to face short- and long-term cancer risks (Greenwire, Aug. 29, 2014).
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US EPA Revokes Snur for Two Substances
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is revoking the significant new use rule (Snur), issued for two chemical substances identified generically as metal salts of complex inorganic oxyacids.
It has received test data, leading it to conclude that both have inherently low toxicity, it said.
The agency issued the Snur, based on a Toxic Substances Control Act section 5(e) consent order designating certain activities as significant new uses.
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Common Herbicide Used In Monsanto’s Roundup Deemed ‘Probably Carcinogenic’
Mar 24, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
The widely used herbicide glyphosate, sold by Monsanto as Roundup, is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” concludes an evaluation by the World Health Organization’s cancer arm—the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
Monsanto is strongly disputing the assessment, which was published online on March 20 (Lancet Oncol. 2015, DOI: 10.1016/s1470-2045(15)70134-8). The company claims that the determination is not supported by scientific data.
“We don’t know how IARC could reach a conclusion that is such a dramatic departure from the conclusion reached by all regulatory agencies around the globe,” says Philip Miller, vice president of global regulatory affairs at Monsanto.
IARC evaluated evidence of human exposures, mostly in agricultural workers, in the U.S., Canada, and Sweden published since 2001. The agency found “limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.” There is “convincing evidence that glyphosate also can cause cancer in laboratory animals,” IARC reported.
Use of glyphosate in agriculture has increased dramatically since the introduction of crops—specifically, soybeans and corn—that are genetically modified to resist the herbicide. The chemical has been detected in the “air during spraying, in water, and in food,” according to IARC, but the “level that has been observed is generally low.”
In response to the report, environmental activists are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the safety of glyphosate. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) and other organizations are calling on the Food & Drug Administration to require mandatory labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). “Consumers have the right to know how their food is grown and whether their food dollars are driving up the use of a probable carcinogen,” said Ken Cook, president and cofounder of EWG.
Monsanto is urging WHO officials to meet with regulatory agencies around the world to examine the scientific studies used in the IARC analysis and to account for studies that the IARC work omitted. The company asserts that IARC selectively chose particular studies and disregarded the most relevant data.
“It is imperative for society that conclusions about a matter as important as human safety be nonbiased, thorough, and based on science that adheres to internationally recognized standards,” Miller says.
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Products that Contain Asbestos Should be Regulated and Labeled
Mar 24, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
If a product you were thinking of buying contained asbestos, chances are you’d want to know while you were in the store, say, by reading a warning on the item’s label.
Like most Americans, you’d want to avoid buying such an item, because, as you probably know, asbestos fibers are microscopic – hundreds of times thinner than a human hair. According to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, all forms of asbestos are hazardous, and no level of exposure to the substance is safe. It’s well documented that inhalation of asbestos fibers can cause asbestosis, a painful and often fatal inflammation; lung cancer and mesothelioma, a rare, always fatal malignancy which can strike the lungs and sometimes heart, gastrointestinal system and testes.
No merchandise made with asbestos or contaminated with it should be on the market. But current law doesn’t ban this dangerous mineral. The federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 does not give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the tools it needs to ban asbestos. An EPA proposal to do just that was rejected by a federal appeals court in 1991.
As Congress debates two legislative proposals to fix the substantially flawed TSCA law, it’s worth considering whether either bill would allow the EPA to do what is required to regulate items containing asbestos.
Industry bill: Common sense dictates that if a substance is dangerous, as asbestos clearly is, consumer products that contain it should be pasted with warning labels. But the bill backed (and possibly written) by the chemical industry and introduced by Sens. Tom Udall, D-N.M. and David Vitter, R-La., proposes to strike language in the current law that allows the EPA to require items containing regulated substances to bear warnings.
Even worse, this bill would force the EPA to prove that users of a product would endure “significant exposure” to a dangerous substance before the agency could regulate the item. To be clear, the bill would set up a new hurdle for the EPA that would be more harmful to public health than current law. If every single one of the vast number of products that could contain asbestos or other dangerous substances had to be evaluated individually, the EPA would be hard-pressed to actually protect consumers.
Boxer-Markey bill: In contrast, the bill proposed by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass, explicitly covers products as well as raw substances themselves. The Boxer-Markey bill would not require evidence of “significant exposure” before the EPA could act to protect the public from a dangerous substance like asbestos. It would give the federal government the power to regulate risky articles by any means appropriate, including forcing industry to label products whose contents could pose risks to consumers.
Conclusion:
The Boxer-Markey bill would not hamstring the EPA from taking action against products containing asbestos, or any other substances that could endanger human health. In stark contrast, the Udall-Vitter proposal would erect two new roadblocks that would deny the EPA the authority it needs to protect consumers from asbestos-laced products. It would worsen an already broken current law.
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Caller Threatened to 'Shut Down the Power Grid' with Computer Virus
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
An unknown caller threatened to unleash a cyber weapon on a Vermont electric utility this December, federal records show.
Green Mountain Power, which serves about 265,000 customers in Vermont, "received two separate phone calls from the same individual threatening to shut down the power grid in Vermont and on the Eastern Seaboard with a computer virus," according to Department of Energy reports obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.
The cyberthreat kicked regional grid operators into high alert as transmission owner Vermont Electric Power Co. shared news of the phone calls with the New York Independent System Operator, PJM Interconnection, and authorities in New Brunswick and Ontario.
The FBI is investigating the case. Spokeswoman Amanda Cox of the agency's Albany, N.Y., office said, "There doesn't seem to be any validity" to the Dec. 30 threats. She declined to provide additional details.
ISO New England, the nonprofit organization that oversees power markets from Maine to Connecticut, first reported the incident to the Department of Energy (EnergyWire, Feb. 9).
Spokeswoman Lacey Girard said the ISO "takes all threats to the region's bulk power system seriously, both physical and cyber."
She said she couldn't elaborate on the details of the Dec. 30 event and its subsequent response "because it would compromise the security we currently have in place."
In general, she said, "we monitor system conditions continuously and share relevant information with appropriate regulatory and industry bodies, and we have a dedicated team that prepares for, monitors and responds to cybersecurity threats."
A spokeswoman for Green Mountain Power deferred comment to the FBI, citing security concerns.
The mysterious calls offer an "interesting" domestic case study as global hackers increasingly try their hands at cyber extortion, according to Richard Andres, a professor of national security strategy at the U.S. National War College.
"For a long time now, the threats have been shifting to the cyber side because of the presumed anonymity that goes along with that -- you don't need as many resources," said Andres, who was not previously familiar with the Dec. 30 calls to Green Mountain Power and spoke from his general expertise on cyber and critical infrastructure security. "Most people are just completely unaware of how often power companies are threatened with cyber blackmail."
A 2011 survey of 200 executives from electricity infrastructure businesses found that a quarter of respondents had fallen victim to cyber extortion. Computer security firm McAfee conducted the survey.
The report found that cases of cyber blackmail were most common in India and Mexico.
"Blackmail doesn't work very often here [in the U.S.]," Andres explained. But in many other countries, "law enforcement doesn't have the same capabilities to track these guys down."
The FBI immediately worked toward tracing the phone number that delivered the threats to Green Mountain Power last year, based on the DOE reports.
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Coal-Heavy States Explore Carbon-Cutting Options with Support from National Governors Association
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Utah's political leaders are unequivocal about their position on U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan -- they're not fans.
The draft rule embodies federal overreach, is riddled with procedural and legal weaknesses, and gives Utah "deep anxieties" about the impact the regulation could have on the coal-dependent state's economy, according to Jeffrey Barrett, deputy director for Republican Gov. Gary Herbert's Office of Energy Development. Utah wants to see the proposal retracted or significantly revised.
"However, knowing that we will likely find ourselves having to comply with some form of carbon regulation in the near term, we are determined not to be caught flat-footed," Barrett said.
That's why Utah and three other states with mixed feelings about the rule -- Michigan, Missouri and Pennsylvania -- all applied for and will receive assistance from the National Governors Association to explore various carbon-reducing options and model how they might affect their electricity systems.
"Being proactive and strategically positioned to comply with impending federal regulations is preferred to being reactive," Utah explained in its application for NGA's Policy Academy.
"We see the writing on the wall in terms of greenhouse gas regulations, and we want to be prepared," Barrett said. "We're being pragmatic."
Utah isn't alone in that sentiment, although the state is far more transparent about its efforts to explore potential compliance options than many others. In the Southeast, for example, at least one state held private meetings this month with government officials and top-level environmental and business leaders -- some of whom would back out of the efforts if they became public, according to organizers.
Barrett said some of the conversations in Utah have been "tricky," in part because the state clearly believes the rule is not legally defensible but is proceeding as if at least a version of it will overcome legal challenges and move forward. But with state plans for cutting emissions due as soon as 2016, he said Utah has an obligation to constituents to start to prepare. The flip side of 'just say no'
The National Governors Association would not provide more details on the program, including where the idea or the funding for the Policy Academy originated. NGA's Center for Best Practices routinely offers help to states that want to explore policies on economic development, education, the environment, health and public safety. But diving into the controversial rule and encouraging officials to start looking at options signals that there is at least some agreement within the bipartisan organization that states should be planning ahead.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), on the other hand, told the National Governors Association in a letter last week that states should refuse to write proposals to comply. EPA will release a draft federal implementation plan this summer to show states what they might have to do to reduce carbon emissions if they don't write their own plans.
Utah, however, doesn't want to risk letting the federal government decide how it should proceed. State officials and legislators told EPA in separate comments that the rule would violate state sovereignty to determine how to use natural resources and run electric markets. The state has seen others opt for federal plans in the past and regret it, Barrett said.
Utah wants to find the most "cost-effective and sustainable state-led approaches for reducing carbon emissions," according to the state's application to NGA.
"Assuming that we are going to have to comply with either 111(d) as proposed or something that looks like 111(d) or even something that's significantly modified ... there's not a lot of time for preparing state plans," Barrett said. "We're going to do everything we can to understand 111(d) and how we can work with it ... regardless of our fundamental position."
With that in mind, Utah has tried to maintain a "workable relationship" with EPA, too, despite sending public comments disagreeing with the core tenets of the regulation, Barrett said. A year to study the options
NGA will offer tailored system modeling to participating states, which several sources said would be done by the research group Resources for the Future.
Utah's biggest coal plant and renewable facility both export their power to other states. Utah wants to use the modeling to better understand crediting for renewable energy that is produced in one state and consumed in another. The state wants to examine the implications of getting credit for building up that zero-carbon power or for shutting down coal plants. Many states are waiting for EPA to clarify how credit for those actions will be divided among states.
Utah says it can leverage its existing efforts to better use NGA's tools. The state has had dozens of meetings so far with stakeholders about the Clean Power Plan. Utah says NGA's program could help it "take advantage of innovative and market-based tools" to cut power-sector carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020. EPA expects Utah's power plant fleet to reduce its carbon emissions rate 27.1 percent by 2030.
Barrett said Utah is expecting many states to submit compliance plans individually, rather than as groups. But state plans are likely to encourage collaborations, he said. States may want to trade energy efficiency credits, for example.
Utah is awaiting research from the Western Interstate Energy Board on a "modular approach" to multi-state compliance with the draft rule. A final report is supposed to look into how states could swap resources and credits for individual carbon-reducing measures, including bulking up renewable energy and energy efficiency and re-dispatching from coal to natural gas.
The Western Interstate Energy Board consists of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
"There's certainly a lot of focus in the West on partnering to understand impacts and options," Barrett said, noting Utah has also been sitting in on related meetings with the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University.
In North Carolina, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University has also suggested states lay the groundwork for trading carbon credits, even if they aren't going to submit plans to EPA together or participate in a formal regional cap-and-trade program. And other think tanks around the country have been looking at those less rigid ways for states to collaborate (ClimateWire, March 17).
"This is an opportunity for us to build relationships across agencies that maybe have not coordinated before, and in states across the region that have not done so before," Barrett said.
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Texas Town Rejects New Well Rules as Industry Lashes out against Local Control
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Mike Lee
City leaders here turned down a proposal to expand the buffer between gas wells and surrounding homes, as the oil industry broadened its push to limit local governments' ability to regulate energy development.
The City Council voted unanimously yesterday to revise its gas drilling ordinance to include seismic and air quality monitoring, among other changes. Most of those suggestions came from a group of residents who have been lobbying for tougher rules on the air pollution, traffic and noise that come with gas drilling.
Mayor David Cook said the council couldn't adopt a wider setback without provoking a reaction from the state Legislature.
"That's the reasons state is trying to take away local control," he said.
The oil industry has been pushing back against local energy regulations since November, when the city of Denton, about 40 miles north of Dallas, voted to ban hydraulic fracturing inside the city limits.
Mansfield, a bedroom community 20 miles southwest of Dallas, isn't banning drilling or fracking. Instead, it's one of a half-dozen communities that are looking to control the side effects of oil and gas production while still allowing development (EnergyWire, Dec. 8, 2014).
Typically, cities in Texas impose noise restrictions, limit the hours that some operations can be performed and impose a setback between well sites and surrounding homes.
In Austin, oil industry lobbyists and state legislators said at a hearing of the House Energy Resources Committee that the local ordinances amount to an attack on the state's most important industry.
"Anti-fossil fuel forces whose goal is to stop oil and gas production are pushing both direct and indirect local measures that run afoul of our state policy," said Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association. "Job-killing setbacks are predatory practices promoted by out-of-state interests under the guise of health and safety."
Mansfield and other cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have been coping with urban drilling for more than a decade, since modern hydraulic fracturing made it feasible to tap into the Barnett Shale and other deep gas formations.
Drilling has tapered off as gas prices fell, but Tarrant County, which includes Mansfield, is still the state's top gas producer.
Over the last 18 months, residents have had some success in convincing their communities to adopt stricter ordinances, citing the long-term health impacts of drilling in proximity to homes. The Dallas City Council voted in 2013 to adopt a 1,500-foot setback between wells and homes (EnergyWire, Dec. 12, 2013).
In Mansfield, the business community rallied against wider setbacks, saying theys would infringe on property rights.
"I live in Texas; this isn't Moscow," a local land developer told the City Council.
In Austin, the committee's Republican majority seemed eager to protect the oil industry's prerogatives. Chairman Drew Darby pointed to the state constitution, which encourages the development of natural resources.
The committee debated two of roughly a dozen bills that affect local control of oil and gas development. H.B. 539 would require cities that ban drilling to reimburse the state for lost taxes. Another proposal, H.B. 40, would specify that state agencies have sole authority over oil and gas regulation, allowing cities to impose "commercially reasonable" limits on side noise, traffic and other surface impacts.
"This is intended to allow and in fact encourage operators and the cities to sit down and plan and develop oil and gas," Darby said.
The language puts cities in a bind, said Bryn Meredith, an attorney for Mansfield who testified at the hearing.
"Do we need to follow the price of oil every day in order to decide whether the identical decision is commercially reasonable on a Monday of this week versus a Monday of next week?" he said.
Tamera Bounds, an organizer with Mansfield Gas Well Awareness, said the effort to change the local rules was worth it. She's running for City Council and predicts the city will face pressure to keep changing its ordinance.
"We're not done," she said.
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Green Ads Hit Vulnerable GOP Senators for Climate Votes
Mar 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A green group is running advertisements hitting two vulnerable Republican senators for votes that support a “big polluter agenda.”
The ads shame Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), both of whom face reelection next year, for voting “against safeguards that keep our air and water clean and our climate safe,” said the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which bought the ads.
“But they don’t get a free pass,” Pete Altman, director of NRDC’s climate campaign, said in a statement.
“We’re making sure Ohioans and Pennsylvanians know their senators want to let polluters dump more dangerous pollution into our air and water, to put future generations at risk,” he said.
The NRDC spent six figures on the campaign, meant to coincide with votes on the House and Senate GOP budgets, both of which have many environmental and energy provisions that green groups oppose. The ads are running on newspaper websites and other digital platforms, the NRDC said.
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Mar 24, 2015 | E&E TV
As the voices of concern over the Clean Power Plan's impact on grid reliability grow louder, do states have the ability to ensure reliability in their compliance plans by using tools currently at their disposal? During today's OnPoint, Susan Tierney, senior adviser at the Analysis Group, explains why she believes reliability issues will be solved as stakeholders proceed "in parallel" with compliance. She also discusses the growing support for states to employ the "just say no" option for power plan compliance. Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Hello, and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Sue Tierney, a senior adviser at the Analysis Group. Sue, great to have you back on the show.
Susan Tierney: So nice to see you.
Monica Trauzzi: Sue, there have been many concerns raised from a wide range of stakeholders on the impact of EPA's Clean Power Plan on reliability. As the voices of concern grow louder, is this debate a constructive one?
Susan Tierney: If -- it can be if people remember the reason why reliability organizations say, "Oh, we're looking ahead. We see there's going to be a problem." Usually what that does is get the industry focused on solving the problem. That's the way it always works, and so if that's how we think about it, I think it's a constructive thing.
Monica Trauzzi: Is that what the NERC report did? Did it get people focused on it or did it sort of stir things up a bit and cause even greater concern?
Susan Tierney: Well, I do think it stirred things up, but I'm thinking back to a couple years ago when NERC came up with a study that looked at the effect of the mercury and air toxics rule, and they identified that there'll be a lot of problems associated with the industry implementing that rule, but in fact, what we found was that it got people's attention. People solved the places where there would be problems, and that's where it's continuing to go, so I see it very similarly.
Monica Trauzzi: In a recent report, you say reliability issues will be solved by the dynamic interplay of actions by regulators, entities responsible for reliability and market participants with many solutions proceeding in parallel. This is assuming, though, that all of these stakeholders are on the same page. That does not seem to be the case right now on the state level within states, so how do states overcome that challenge of not being on the same page and getting to the point where they are truly moving in parallel?
Susan Tierney: That's a really good question, but in some sense, that isn't different than what we've seen in the past, except the fact that there are these state plans that have to be built. So the reason I say that is we've seen a lot of prior environmental regulations in the past where either the states who represented the companies in their state felt like they didn't really like the fact that they had to do something that the federal government was doing, but at the end of the day, when push came to shove, they got their act together and the industry did what it needed to do. What I see right now is there's certainly a lot of jockeying that is always the case when there's a rule that's in proposal form. And we will see a final rule at some point in time. I do hear a lot of people who own power plants saying, really, let's just figure out what we need to do rather than keeping this level of uncertainty going for many, many years. And we actually see market participants who see this as an opportunity coming forth with a lot of proposals. In places like PJM, where we studied, there's just about as much responding to the market signals and coming forth with proposals to build new power plants than there are power plants being retired.
Monica Trauzzi: So you think that the PJM, it's a unique example, and you think that they will not face reliability challenges?
Susan Tierney: The part that's unique or similar to other places that are heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants, that puts it almost in, you know, the most active place where somebody has to respond to these new rules. At the same time, PJM has done a lot of work to analyze what if the rules look like this, what if the states propose plans that are multistate as opposed to single state, and I think the thing that's a clear takeaway from that process is that, if the states honor, in some sense, the fact that they've got an interstate electricity market and try to follow that construct in their state plans, they're much more likely to have a wider set of reliability tools and a cheaper response to the rule in the end.
Monica Trauzzi: So what current tools can you point to that exist for states to ensure reliability as they work towards their compliance mechanisms?
Susan Tierney: Well, a perfect example exists, again, in the PJM place, but it's not unique to PJM. Right now, if a power plant wants to retire, they have to get approval from the balancing authority or the grid operator to say that it's OK if you take that offline, and the power flows will still be OK after that without violating reliability requirements. So in PJM right now, there are several hundred requests for small units and large units that are going to be retired or deactivated. PJM has identified reliability problems and solved them. So they've been solved with either reliability must-run contracts for a limited period of time or some kind of transmission solution or rejiggering of conductors or something or another. A lot of things are going on that allow for a reliable response.
Monica Trauzzi: Going back to the NERC report, NERC had raised initial concerns with reliability, and they sort of talked about the need for transmission upgrades as a key element. Could the U.S. find itself in a position, though, where we have these regulations in place and the infrastructure is not in line?
Susan Tierney: Hypothetically, of course. But in fact, one -- the experience is that if there are transmission lines that are needed for reliability purposes, they have a much easier track record, so to speak, of getting their permits and approvals in a timely way. Harder sometimes for what we call economic transmission upgrades. Somebody's advantage economically is viewed as a disadvantage to somebody else, but the ones that are identified as needing to be done for reliability purposes, those move forward.
Monica Trauzzi: A growing number of voices are calling for states to just say no to the Clean Power Plan. We're hearing that phrase a lot. The plan, the way it's structured, it only works if states comply, so if enough states just say no, could they derail the Clean Power Plan?
Susan Tierney: Well, you're probably going to get lots of answers from lawyers on that question. I'm not even a lawyer, so I understand that there will be a proposed, almost default federal implementation plan proposed by EPA as part of what we might see this summer. Ironically, what I hear from industry people is that it may not serve them well to have their state just say no. That makes their situation much more difficult. They may be held responsible at the end of the day for making sure that there is compliance with emissions reductions. So I see a lot of counterpressures, plus I hear some of those states that are gearing up to file suit also having a lot of meetings to talk about a Plan B.
Monica Trauzzi: All right. We're going to end it right there. Thank you for coming on the show. Nice to see you again.
Susan Tierney: Thank you.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
[End of Audio]
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Bill to Yank Fuels from Cap and Trade Fails, but Questions Remain on Reality of CO2 Reductions
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Anne C. Mulkern
Legislation that would have retroactively exempted motor fuels from the mandates of California's cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions was rejected yesterday by a state Assembly committee.
The Assembly Natural Resources Committee voted 6-3 against passing A.B. 23, from Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R), a bill he said was needed to protect schools, businesses and motorists from paying higher fuel prices as a result of cap and trade. The lawmaker from Fresno in response promised a continued push for answers on how well the state's cap-and-trade program is reducing greenhouse gases.
Patterson said that there's a lack of data on whether programs funded by proceeds from cap and trade actually are shrinking carbon pollution. The money goes into the state's coffers, with Gov. Jerry Brown (D) budgeting $1 billion from the program in fiscal 2015-2016. The Legislative Analysts Office, the nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, said it could be closer to $2.3 billion after factoring in the inclusion of motor fuels.
"The actions of this committee mean that taxpayer funds will continue to be drained from the wallets of Californians at the gas pump to fund programs intended, but not proven to reduce greenhouse gases," Patterson said. "Even the Legislative Analyst's Office finds 'significant uncertainty' about the actual impact of GHG reductions that will be achieved by the many projects to be funded by cap and trade."
Democrats on the committee said it would be unfair to give oil distributors an exemption while other businesses remain in cap and trade.
"The rest of the burden of the cap would be felt by the rest of private industry in the state, and I don't think that that's fair to the other businesses," said Assemblyman Das Williams (D), the committee chairman. "Transportation fuels such a large portion" of emissions "that they [have] to carry their own burden." Williams added that he "stood by" the principles of the state's climate law.
California's cap-and-trade system, aimed at cutting the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change, auctions environmental permits to businesses required to meet program mandates. Funds are supposed to be spent on programs that meet the mission of state climate law A.B. 32. It seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and 85 percent below that point by 2050.
Cap and trade starting Jan. 1 wrapped in distributors of motor fuels like gasoline and diesel. They're now required to submit allowances for greenhouse gas emissions tied to all in-state gasoline and diesel sales. Those are estimated at 17 billion gallons annually in the Golden State. Fuels represent about 40 percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions, the largest single sector.
The LAO in an analysis of the 2014-2015 fiscal budget urged more scrutiny of how cap-and-trade funds are spent (ClimateWire, Feb. 25, 2014).
"In reviewing the Governor's proposed expenditure plan for cap-and-trade auction revenue, we find that there is significant uncertainty regarding the degree to which each investment proposed for funding will achieve GHG reductions," the LAO said in the statement Patterson cited. "This uncertainty is the result of several factors, including there being only limited data and analysis provided by the administration, as well as the fact that the level of emission reductions achieved would depend on the specific projects funded by departments.
"Consequently, it is very difficult for the Legislature to have assurance that the specific package of programs proposed by the administration would achieve the greatest reduction per dollar invested possible, or whether a different set of programs might yield better outcomes in a more cost-effective manner," LAO added. Air board: Measuring tools exist
The California Air Resources Board, which administers cap and trade, did not immediately respond yesterday to a request for comment on Patterson's statements or his LAO reference. When the LAO's report came out last year, Dave Clegern, spokesman for ARB, said that the state's Auction Proceeds Investment Plan includes tools for measuring and reporting emissions.
"The State will utilize established calculation methodologies and metrics in transportation, energy and natural resources and waste diversion," that plan said. "ARB staff will consult with each agency to ensure emission reduction estimates are uniform across similar programs, and consistent with regulatory and planning protocols."
"Many of the tools already exist," Clegern said. "Results will depend on which programs are actually funded when the budget process is done."
Patterson said, however, that while the money is being spent, "we yet to see a breakdown of the emissions reductions actually achieved. What reductions occurred as a result of the cap portion of the cap and trade?"
Patterson's A.B. 23 was supported by groups that included a Clovis, Calif., school district, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. School district costs will rise because they use gasoline for buses and other vehicles, Patterson said.
"If fuel prices are allowed to rise due to cap and trade, then we will have no choice but to reduce services," said Steve Ward, a legislative analyst with the Clovis Unified School District.
Opponents of including gasoline and diesel in cap and trade also argue that it amounts to a tax, adding 10 to 12 cents or more per gallon to gasoline. That's based on the price of allowances under cap and trade, which now is averaging about $12 per carbon ton.
While the impact of including fuels in cap and trade had been muted by lower oil prices, the cost of gasoline in California has jumped about $1 per gallon in the last month, as oil prices have risen. In February, there also was a refinery explosion and outage at Exxon Mobil Corp. facility in Torrance.
"The application of cap and trade to transportation fuel is in my opinion the textbook case of the Legislature's power of the purse being transferred inappropriately to the regulatory bodies," said Assemblyman David Hadley (R). "This is a tax on gasoline that the Legislature has not approved." Health groups: Cap and trade cuts costs
Health and environmental groups opposed the bill.
"Climate change is the biggest health threat of our time, and the impacts are happening now," said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior policy director for the American Lung Association. Physicians are seeing impacts, she said.
"California can save $23 billion in health and incidental costs by implementing" cap and trade and other climate programs, she said.
Jena Price, legislative affairs manager with the California League of Conservation Voters, said that oil companies had three years before they had to comply with cap and trade, while some other businesses have been buying allowances since the start of the program.
In addition, she said, 14 million school days are missed every year by children with asthma, and 1 out of 4 children in the state's Central Valley has asthma.
The committee also rejected A.B. 239, which would have ended ARB's authority to adopt new regulations or amend existing ones under the state's climate law, A.B. 32. The sponsor of that bill, Assemblyman James Gallagher (R), said the Legislature had ceded too much authority on implementing the law to ARB.
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Inhofe in no Rush to Confirm EPA Nominees
Mar 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
en. James Inhofe isn't in a hurry to get President Obama's picks for U.S. EPA on the job.
The Oklahoma Republican has yet to hold a hearing or a vote on any executive branch nominees since he took over as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee in January. Of seven nominees pending before his panel, three would hold top posts at EPA. And Inhofe doesn't intend to hold votes on those nominees anytime soon.
"We don't have plans to right now because of the other priorities," Inhofe said yesterday in an interview when asked about the EPA picks.
Still, he expects some EPA nominees to win Senate confirmation before Obama's term expires in January 2017. "I'm sure that some of them will," he said, but didn't name specific nominees.
The EPA nominees now waiting for action from the EPW Committee are Stan Meiburg, who was picked to be deputy administrator; Ann Dunkin, nominated to lead EPA's environmental information office; and Jane Nishida, Obama's nominee to head the agency's international and tribal office. All told, eight of EPA's top political positions are now vacant or occupied by acting officials; six Senate-confirmed officials are on the job at the agency.
Several other administration picks for EPA jobs haven't yet been renominated by the White House this year, a move that would be required to advance their nominations in the Senate. That includes Janet McCabe and Ken Kopocis, the nominees to lead EPA's air and water offices, respectively. McCabe was first nominated in 2013; Kopocis was first named in 2011. Both have been on the job at EPA as they've waited for a green light from the Senate.
The backlog of EPA nominees has rankled Democratic lawmakers and administration officials.
"I think the president needs to put his people in place, and it's really sad that they're blocking so many," EPW Committee ranking member Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said yesterday of Senate Republican leadership.
Meanwhile, EPA will "just do what they do as best they can," Boxer added. "They have some stars there; they'll have to fill the void."
"It would be great to have a full team," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said last September, but "we're going to deliver regardless."
She added, "I think it gets challenging and more challenging over time. ... We'd certainly like those confirmations to come through" (E&ENews PM, Sept. 18, 2014).
Also awaiting action from the Senate EPW panel are two nominees to serve on the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board: Vanessa Allen Sutherland, nominated to be the next chairwoman, and Kristen Kulinowski.
The Obama administration hasn't named a nominee to take over the White House Council on Environmental Quality since former Chairwoman Nancy Sutley stepped down more than a year ago. Instead, former CEQ chief of staff Mike Boots filled in as acting chairman until he stepped down this month. Former National Park Service official Christy Goldfuss replaced Boots at the helm of CEQ, and it's unclear whether the administration will nominate a permanent chief before Obama leaves office.
That setup doesn't trouble Inhofe, whose committee has jurisdiction over CEQ. "I think I'm satisfied with an acting director in there because the unknown is always worse," he said.
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