Preview Newsletter
ACC AM Ap 13
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Oversight of the Management of the Federal Environmental Protection, Chemical Safety and Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Apr 14, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building, EPW Hearing Room 406/ 9:30 AM -
Oversight of the Ongoing Rail, Pipeline, and Hazmat Rulemakings
Apr 14, 2015 | U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Location: 2167 Rayburn House Office Building/ 10:00 AM -
EPA’s Proposed 111(d) Rule for Existing Power Plants, and H.R. __, Ratepayer Protection Act
Apr 13, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2123 Rayburn House Office Building/ 10:00 AM -
H.R. ____, the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015
Apr 14, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2322 Rayburn House Office Building/ 10:15 AM -
Markup of H.R. ___, H.R. ___, and H.R. 906, A Bill to Modify the Efficiency Standards for Grid-Enabled Water Heaters
Apr 14, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2125 Rayburn House Office Building/ 5:00 PM -
Oversight Hearing on "Examining the Future Impacts of President Obama's Offshore Energy Plan."
Apr 15, 2015 | The House Committee on Natural Resources
Location: 1334 Longworth House Office Building/ 10:00 AM -
Hearing on the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook for 2015
Apr 16, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 366/ 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) Looking Forward: Growing PA’s Chemical Industry
Apr 10, 2015 | Pennsylvania Chemical Industry Council
Another business in the chemical industry is leaving Pennsylvania. Last week, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported Dyno Nobel– a company that supplies nitrogen based products to agricultural and industrial chemical markets and industrial explosives and blasting services for the mining, quarrying and construction industries — will idle its ... -
(ACC Mentioned) Procter & Gamble Joins Flexible Film Recycling Efforts
Apr 10, 2015 | WasteDive
By Nicole Wrona
he American Chemistry Council (ACC) announced that Procter & Gamble joined the Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG) — a self-funded organization focused on the recovery of flexible polyethylene film, wraps and bags. FFRG has backed the Sustainable Packaging Coalitions store drop-off label for plastic film packaging and assisted with ... -
(ACC Mentioned) Scaled-Down TSCA Comes Before Subpanel for Review
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sam Pearson
House lawmakers will take their first crack this Congress at updating the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 at a subcommittee hearing this week. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy is set to discuss a discussion draft by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) tomorrow. -
Production Thresholds Triggering Obligation To File Reports in 2016 Summarized by EPA
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A fact sheet offering chemical manufacturers guidance on production volumes that will trigger Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule submissions was posted by the Environmental Protection Agency April 9. The EPA fact sheet provides information about regulatory reporting thresholds applicable to the CDR's 2016 reporting period. -
Week ahead: House Turns to Chemical Reform
Apr 13, 2015 | The Hill - Regulation
By Lydia Wheeler
House lawmakers will meet next week to discuss chemical reform legislation. Two competing bills to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act have already been introduced in the Senate. But on Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy will hold a hearing to discuss the draft of a new bill... -
EPA to Delay Until May 2016 Release Of E-Manifest Fee Structure Proposal
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is delaying until May 2016 the release of a proposed fee structure to support a national electronic system for submitting hazardous waste manifests. The EPA had previously said it would propose a rule (RIN 2050-AG80) outlining the fee structure by September 2015 (225 DEN A-10, 11/21/14). -
Energy Industry Groups First to Sue EPA Over New Definition of Solid Waste
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Four associations representing the natural gas and electric power industry are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's recently promulgated definition of solid waste (RIN 2050-AG62), which the agency believes balances beneficial reuse of hazardous materials with greater human health and environmental safeguards... -
Worldwide Fluorocarbon Producers Launch New Website
Apr 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The organisation representing worldwide fluorocarbon producers has launched a new website. The Global Fluorocarbon Producers Forum (GFPF) website features sections on fluorocarbon uses in everyday life. These include refrigeration, air conditioning, respiratory inhalers and foam blowing agents for insulation products. -
Lead Renovators Certifications Extended
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency will extend certifications of certain lead paint renovators while it completes a final rule that could change training requirements, the agency said in a separate final rule issued online April 9. The final rule extending the certifications will be effective the day it is published in the Federal Register. -
(ACC Blog) An Energy and Water Efficiency Playground on California’s Capitol Lawn!
Apr 10, 2015 | American Chemistry Matters
Earlier this week, ACC joined groups from the energy and water efficiency sectors to demonstrate to California regulators and lawmakers how chemistry enables new and existing technologies that can help California meet its ambitious renewable energy and efficiency goals. http://blog.americanchemistry.com/ -
(ACC Mentioned) Science Advisory Board Reform Effort Evokes Bill Vetoed by Reagan, Former Official Says
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Legislation that would alter the membership of the Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board is reminiscent of a legislative provision President Ronald Reagan vetoed in 1982, a former EPA and American Chemistry Council official recently told Bloomberg BNA. -
Legislation to Allow Fracking Permits In 2017 Clears Maryland General Assembly
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kathy Lundy Springuel
Maryland could start issuing permits for hydraulic fracturing on Oct. 1, 2017, under legislation (H.B. 449) that cleared the General Assembly April 10. The bill would instruct the Maryland Department of the Environment to adopt fracking regulations by Oct. 1, 2016, and put them into effect one year later, after which time permits could be... -
Greens Press Clinton to Oppose Fracking
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
More than 100 environmental groups are pressuring former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to oppose hydraulic fracturing, days before her expected presidential campaign announcement. The coalition of mostly local anti-fracking groups noted that New York, the likely host to her campaign and the state she represented in the Senate... -
Subcommittee to Probe Crude Export Ban
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Nick Juliano
The ban on exporting crude oil is in line for renewed attention in the House this week, as a subcommittee chairman who hopes to lift the ban convenes a hearing aimed at helping to build that case. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who leads the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade... -
US Plans New Offshore Drilling Rule
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration will release a new rule as soon as Monday that aims to prevent offshore drilling disasters like the major Gulf of Mexico oil spill five years ago. The Interior Department’s rule will be timed to coincide with the anniversary of the explosion at BP’s Macondo well on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, which killed 11 and... -
Lawmakers Set to Spar Over Leasing Plan
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
A House Natural Resources subpanel will consider the Obama administration's draft five-year offshore leasing plan Wednesday, spotlighting an ongoing debate in Congress over how best to manage the nation's offshore energy resources. Republicans on the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee claim that the Interior Department's... -
New U.S. Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling Rules Seen Imminent
Apr 11, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder & Russell Gold
The Obama administration is expected to propose in the coming days an offshore oil and natural gas drilling regulation aimed at preventing the kind of explosion that erupted five years ago on BP ’s Deepwater Horizon rig, killing 11 people and causing the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. -
Management Regimes for Drilling Wastes Can Vary Widely by State, Regulators Find
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Resurgent oil and gas production in the U.S. has significantly increased volumes of generated waste but states have widely varying regulatory programs for managing the by-products, a report from state waste management officials concludes. States have “significant challenges” associated with disposal or beneficial reuse of ballooning... -
Administration Formally Starts Review of Shell’s Arctic Drilling Plan
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration formally kicked off its full review Friday of Royal Dutch Shell’s application to restart oil and natural gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Shell hopes to drill an exploratory well this summer in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska, and it has a lease on the area’s drilling rights. But before Shell can drill, its detailed drilling plan... -
Shell Exploration Plan for 2015 in Arctic Submitted for BOEM Review, Public Comment
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Royal Dutch Shell Plc has filed a revised exploration plan to drill up to six wells in the Chukchi Sea this summer by using a drillship and a floating drilling platform that will back each other up in the event of problems, according to a document posted April 10 for public comment. -
Obama Admin Formally Accepts Shell's Application To Drill This Summer
Apr 10, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The Obama administration today formally accepted Royal Dutch Shell PLC's application to drill in the American Arctic this summer, a move that gives regulators only 30 days to decide whether the oil company can move forward with its plans. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management also announced a two-phase public comment period for Shell's... -
Oil Industry Tries to Prove Science is Unscientific
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill
By Erik Molvar
In the latest salvo in a war against science, the Western Energy Alliance joined other oil industry interests and a smattering of county governments to launch three complaints against scientific reports on sage grouse, claiming they don't meet scientific standards. The bottom line: They think the science is unscientific. -
EPA Unsure About Deadline Extensions For State Clean Power Plan Compliance
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is open to revising interim carbon dioxide emissions reductions targets in its Clean Power Plan, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will grant states additional time to comply, Administrator Gina McCarthy said. -
House Panel, Mccabe Face Off On 'Just Say No' Bill
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
A key House Energy and Commerce Committee subpanel will hear testimony this week on draft legislation to allow states to opt out of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan. EPA air chief Janet McCabe will headline tomorrow's hearing on a draft bill sponsored by Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), which would grant all states... -
D.C. Circuit to Hear Legal Challenges to EPA Rule
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Rod Kuckro & Emily Holden
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments Thursday morning in two cases brought by 15 states and energy companies seeking to block U.S. EPA from finalizing its greenhouse gas standards for power plants. -
The Dirty Secret of Obama’s Carbon Plan
Apr 12, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Warner Baxter
Americans don’t give much thought to whether their electricity will be there when they need it. You flip a switch, the lights go on. Your phone charges up. The medical equipment in the emergency room does its job. Yet electric reliability, long a bedrock of this country’s prosperity and high standard of living, does not come as easily ... -
Court Narrows EPA's GHG Permit Rule But Leaves Door Open On Threshold
Apr 10, 2015 | InsideEPA
After a months-long delay, a federal appellate court has ruled to formally scale back EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) permit rule in accordance with a Supreme Court decision while issuing a formal mandate to uphold the agency's landmark vehicle GHG rules, endangerment finding and remaining permit requirements -- a long-expected formality. -
Week Ahead: Climate Rule Gets Its Day in Court
Apr 13, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration will go to court next week to defend its signature climate change regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon limits for existing power plants, which were proposed last June, will be the subject of oral arguments Thursday at the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. -
EPA to Propose Renewables Standards By June 1, Issue Final Rule by Nov. 30
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency announced an aggressive schedule April 10 that would bring its lagging renewable fuel standard program back into compliance with the statutory deadlines (Am. Fuel & Petrochemical Mfrs v. EPA, D. D.C., No. 15-cv-00394, consent decree proposed, 4/10/15). -
EPA Says Plan For Multi-Year RFS May Spur 'Strategic' Fix For 'Blend Wall'
Apr 10, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's top transportation official says a consent decree committing the agency to issuing a multi-year renewable fuel standard (RFS) later this year will allow EPA to craft a “strategic” policy that could fix the long-running problem of the “blend wall” -- the saturation of ethanol in the fuel supply that has boosted calls to scrap or overhaul the RFS. -
EPA, Oil Groups Settle Lawsuit Over RFS Deadlines
Apr 10, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Peterka
In a tentative settlement with oil trade groups, U.S. EPA has agreed to a timeline to propose and finalize renewable fuel mandates this year. Under the agreement, EPA would propose renewable fuel standard volumes for 2014 and 2015 by June 1 and finalize the standards by Nov. 30. The settlement would resolve the lawsuit filed by the American... -
Superfund EPA Issues Financial Assurance Guidance For Superfund Site Settlement Agreements
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Matthew Berger
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued new internal guidance to assist its regional offices in ensuring financial assurance requirements are set forth in settlement agreements regarding Superfund sites. The guidance, which seeks to better ensure that potentially responsible parties bear the financial burden for Superfund cleanups... -
The Fall of Coal
Apr 13, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Erica Martinson
On a sweltering day in July 1979, President Jimmy Carter flew to Kentucky with a message: The nation’s energy future rested on coal. Not only was coal cheap and abundant, Carter made clear as he donned a hard hat to tour the Cane Run power plant near Louisville — it could also exist side by side with protecting the environment. -
Clinton Candidacy to Put Focus on Strength Of Environmental Record, Splits With Obama
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, has a strong record on protecting the environment and calling for action on climate change over more than two decades of public service. But she will have to take clearer positions on energy issues that she has avoided, more than a dozen environmental ... -
Forum Discusses Potential Impacts Of Military's Energy Initiatives
Apr 10, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Ariel Wittenberg
Legal experts and military officials today discussed key issues in keeping military and environmental objectives balanced and in step with the Department of Defense's energy initiatives. Speaking at the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review Conference, Sarah Light of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School said the military's... -
Officials to Face Scrutiny for Agency Rules on Railroad Tank Cars
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sean Reilly
No one's predicting a train wreck, but a trio of federal transportation officials could face some aggressive questioning tomorrow about proposed standards for strengthening safeguards for oil-carrying railroad tank cars. The hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous ... -
Railroad Chief at a Crossroads
Apr 11, 2015 | Politico
By Heather Caygle
A series of explosive oil train derailments and deadly commuter railroad crashes is putting the Federal Railroad Administration in the kind of political spotlight it hasn’t seen for years — caught between the powerful industry it oversees and congressional critics who have lambasted the agency as arrogant, aloof and slow to regulate. -
FHWA Publishes Guide to Help Agencies Meet Environmental Justice Requirements
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amy Phillips
A comprehensive “reference guide” to help transportation practitioners comply with environmental justice requirements has been published by the Federal Highway Administration. The guide, posted on the agency's website April 10, describes techniques for environmental justice data collection and analyses and strategies for ...
Congressional Hearings
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Full Text of Stories Below
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Apr 14, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building, EPW Hearing Room 406/ 9:30 AM
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Oversight of the Ongoing Rail, Pipeline, and Hazmat Rulemakings
Apr 14, 2015 | U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Location: 2167 Rayburn House Office Building/ 10:00 AM
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EPA’s Proposed 111(d) Rule for Existing Power Plants, and H.R. __, Ratepayer Protection Act
Apr 13, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2123 Rayburn House Office Building/ 10:00 AM
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H.R. ____, the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015
Apr 14, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2322 Rayburn House Office Building/ 10:15 AM
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Apr 14, 2015 | Energy & Commerce Committee
Location: 2125 Rayburn House Office Building/ 5:00 PM
Note:
This will take place in two meetings. The second meeting will be held April 16th at 10:00 AM at 2125 Rayburn House Office Building.
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Oversight Hearing on "Examining the Future Impacts of President Obama's Offshore Energy Plan."
Apr 15, 2015 | The House Committee on Natural Resources
Location: 1334 Longworth House Office Building/ 10:00 AM -
Hearing on the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook for 2015
Apr 16, 2015 | U.S. Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources
Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 366/ 10:00 AM
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(ACC Mentioned) Looking Forward: Growing PA’s Chemical Industry
Apr 10, 2015 | Pennsylvania Chemical Industry Council
Another business in the chemical industry is leaving Pennsylvania. Last week, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported Dyno Nobel– a company that supplies nitrogen based products to agricultural and industrial chemical markets and industrial explosives and blasting services for the mining, quarrying and construction industries — will idle its southwestern Pennsylvania plant and cease production on May 1st.
As the 10th largest chemical-producing state in the country, as noted by the American Chemistry Council, Pennsylvania can continue to grow our chemical industry only if the state offers a welcoming environment for manufacturing companies to come and do business here.
Because natural gas serves as a feedstock for the chemical industry, the abundance of Marcellus Shale and increased natural gas development in Pennsylvania can help us catch up to our neighboring states Ohio, New York and New Jersey, who rank the 6th, 7th and 9th largest chemical-producing states respectively.
In Pennsylvania, the chemical industry brings in $22.2 billion making it the fourth largest manufacturing industry in the state. It is imperative we continue to support and grow this industry to ensure its future viability and competitiveness here — as the industry continues to grow nationwide, we want to make sure that growth stays in Pennsylvania.
According to an industry-funded study conducted by the research firm IHS, it’s estimated “the chemical industry will make $129 billion in new investments nationwide as a direct result of domestic shale gas, adding more than 50,000 permanent jobs to a workforce of around 800,000,” according the 2013 article on AlleghenyFront.org.
Pennsylvania’s chemical industry not only supports natural gas development, it also helps generate an additional 35,100 jobs in plastics and rubber products. Additionally, it helps provide 41,300 direct jobs and another 50,000 related jobs helping workers earn an average wage of $88,600 — 57 percent higher than the average manufacturing wage.
A perfect example of the growth that can happen in a welcoming manufacturing environment is Royal Dutch Shell, which has proposed building a petrochemical cracker complex in Beaver County that will turn ethane–a natural gas liquid–into ethylene, a building block for the plastics industry. The proposed Shell plant could add 10,000 jobs during construction and 17,000 indirect jobs as additional chemical companies and suppliers enter the area, according to various reports. The plant would be the first ethane cracker of its size in the Appalachian region.
As lawmakers continue to vet Gov. Wolf’s business tax reform plan and proposal to enact a 5 percent severance tax on the natural gas industry, they must remember not to stifle the state’s business climate. To ensure that we climb the ranks when it comes to our chemical industry we need to press our lawmakers to enact reasonable incentives that will bolster growth and attract additional chemical manufacturing companies to the state. Pennsylvania cannot afford to get left behind.
Check out the links below to view more states’ chemistry industry fact sheets.
New Jersey Fact Sheet
New York Fact Sheet
Ohio Fact Sheet
Texas Fact Sheet
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(ACC Mentioned) Procter & Gamble Joins Flexible Film Recycling Efforts
Apr 10, 2015 | WasteDive
By Nicole Wrona
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) announced that Procter & Gamble joined the Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG) — a self-funded organization focused on the recovery of flexible polyethylene film, wraps and bags.
FFRG has backed the Sustainable Packaging Coalitions store drop-off label for plastic film packaging and assisted with film recycling pilot programs nationwide.Stephen Sikra, the P&G Research and Development Manager said that optimizing and recovering packaging is a key part of the sustainability mission at the company.
Dive Insight:
The recycling of post consumer plastic film grew 11%, or by 116 million pounds, in 2013- to reach an estimated 1.14 billion pounds, according to a report. This is the largest annual collection of plastic film materials since the survey started in 2005.
Founding members of the program include Dow Chemical, Chevron Phillips, SC Johnson, ExxonMobil, Berry Plastics, Wisconsin Film and Bag, Sealed Air Corporation, Avangard and Trex.
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(ACC Mentioned) Scaled-Down TSCA Comes Before Subpanel for Review
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sam Pearson
House lawmakers will take their first crack this Congress at updating the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 at a subcommittee hearing this week.
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy is set to discuss a discussion draft by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) tomorrow.
Shimkus' proposal, the "TSCA Modernization Act," is the product of negotiations underway since last year, when his efforts at a broader overhaul fell flat amid opposition from Democrats.
Democrats, including former Rep. Henry Waxman of California, suggested at the time that Shimkus scale back his proposal and focus only on areas on which lawmakers can reach agreement.
As a result, Shimkus' draft bill is just 30 pages, less than a quarter the size of a more complex proposal under consideration in the Senate, S. 697, or the "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act." That bill has the backing of Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and David Vitter (R-La.), along with more than a dozen co-sponsors from both parties.
That makes the Shimkus proposal significantly different from previous TSCA bills, which sought to broadly replace the law. The bill also would fix what has been one of the most persistent criticisms of many environment and public health organizations -- that other proposals would create a dangerous regulatory gap by overriding state laws when U.S. EPA has begun a safety assessment of a chemical but before it has taken any action on the basis of that assessment.
The House proposal, for the first time, clarifies that state rules would not be affected until EPA has taken a regulatory action. However, it would pre-empt future and existing state restrictions, not just new restrictions, making the pre-emption broader than under the Udall-Vitter plan. And it does not contain an exemption for California's Proposition 65 program, as senators had negotiated.
Andy Igrejas, the director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, has called Shimkus' bill a "serious overture," and lawmakers are expected to try to win over skeptical environmental groups that have been concerned over provisions in similar plans in the past (Greenwire, April 8).
The Environmental Working Group, which also opposes the Udall-Vitter bill, said last week that Shimkus' draft bill did not go far enough to ensure an effective program to evaluate the safety of chemicals.
"I guess the nicest way to put it is that the Udall-Vitter pre-emption proposal was so radical and so troubling that by comparison the new draft seems better," said Scott Faber, EWG's vice president of governmental affairs. "But there are still problems," such as the bill not setting clear deadlines and not containing a strong enough safety standard, Faber said.
In the Senate, lawmakers who supported the Udall-Vitter TSCA bill chose a panel of nonideological witnesses -- including Edward McCabe, the senior vice president and chief medical officer at the March of Dimes Foundation, and Lynn Goldman, the dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University and a former EPA assistant administrator.
Instead, Republicans on the House committee plan to call the kind of high-profile chemical industry figures who did not participate in the Senate hearing. These witnesses include Michael Walls, the American Chemistry Council's top lobbyist, and Beth Bosley, the president of Boron Specialties LLC, who is testifying on behalf of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates.
A spokeswoman for Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats said they had not yet finalized their slate of witnesses.
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, April 14, at 10:15 a.m. in 2322 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Jim Jones, assistant administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, EPA; Michael Walls, vice president of regulatory and technical affairs, American Chemistry Council; Beth Bosley, president, Boron Specialties LLC; Jennifer Thomas, senior director of federal government affairs, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; other witnesses to be announced.
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Production Thresholds Triggering Obligation To File Reports in 2016 Summarized by EPA
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A fact sheet offering chemical manufacturers guidance on production volumes that will trigger Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule submissions was posted by the Environmental Protection Agency April 9.
The EPA fact sheet provides information about regulatory reporting thresholds applicable to the CDR's 2016 reporting period.
The next submission period for the CDR reports is June 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2016. Production volumes in the years 2012 through 2015 will need to be reported during that submission period.
In most cases companies will be required to submit CDR reports if they make or process chemicals in volumes of 25,000 pounds or more at their site.
A reporting threshold of 2,500 pounds, however, will trigger the requirement to report if a chemical is subject to certain Toxic Substances Control Act regulations or consent orders, the EPA said. The agency posted a second fact sheet describing chemical regulations that companies should consider when determining their CDR reporting obligations.
For example, if the manufacturer of a new chemical, which the agency has determined could pose an unreasonable risk, has agreed through a consent order to comply with certain manufacturing or release restrictions, the reduced reporting threshold would apply.
The fact sheet lists seven different scenarios, asks questions about reporting obligations and provides the agency's answers.
The agency's website said it will continue to post additional guidance.
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Week ahead: House Turns to Chemical Reform
Apr 13, 2015 | The Hill - Regulation
By Lydia Wheeler
House lawmakers will meet next week to discuss chemical reform legislation.
Two competing bills to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act have already been introduced in the Senate. But on Tuesday, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy will hold a hearing to discuss the draft of a new bill sponsored by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.).
The proposed legislation would create a new system for the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate and manage chemicals already on the market and set a 3-year deadline for risk evaluations of chemicals selected by the EPA. ADVERTISEMENTSens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) are behind the Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act, while Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and David Vitter (R-La.) are pushing a bill named after the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).
The fight has been heated at times, with Boxer and Markey accusing Udall and Vitter of letting industry draft their legislation. Boxer claims her bill is superior because it directs the EPA to regulate asbestos. Udall has said his bill does not single out one chemical because it gives the EPA the authority to regulate any of the 84,000 chemicals in commerce.
Environmental groups that support the Boxer-Markey bill say they are still reviewing the legislation, but it appears to give states more authority to pass their own chemical laws than the Udall-Vitter bill, which preempts states from taking action on any chemical EPA deems a high priority and begins to review.
“The stripped-down framework of the House approach has some promise,” the advocacy group Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families said in a news release. “It compares favorably to the Senate bill on the timing of preemption and its lack of rollbacks to the federal program. At the same time, the fundamentals of reform, like the standard for EPA to act, have to be there and it’s not clear if they are.”
The Environmental Working Group, however, said the House bill falls short of what’s needed to ensure the chemicals in the products people use every day are safe.
“Simply put, this draft will not require that chemicals are safe before they’re used, won’t give EPA authority to quickly review and regulate the most dangerous chemicals, will not provide tough deadlines for regulating dangerous chemicals, and will not provide EPA with the necessary resources to get the job done,” EWG President and Co-founder Ken Cook said in a statement.
Elsewhere, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to discuss the Innovation Act, a bill authored by Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to address abusive patent litigation. Kevin Kramer, the vice president and deputy general counsel for intellectual property at Yahoo, is expected to testify.
On Wednesday, the EPA also has a big day in court, as the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia hears oral arguments in a challenge to the agency’s carbon limits on existing power plants.
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EPA to Delay Until May 2016 Release Of E-Manifest Fee Structure Proposal
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is delaying until May 2016 the release of a proposed fee structure to support a national electronic system for submitting hazardous waste manifests.
The EPA had previously said it would propose a rule (RIN 2050-AG80) outlining the fee structure by September 2015 (225 DEN A-10, 11/21/14).
But the EPA's top waste official, Mathy Stanislaus, said in a April 8 blog post that the agency is still working with states and affected entities on the proposal.
“This work is essential to designing, building and ultimately deploying the national system, and the agency will soon procure appropriate vendors to achieve these goals,” Stanislaus, assistant administrator for solid waste and emergency response, said. “We will be in close contact with users and other stakeholders to pilot and test the system every step of the way as we proceed.”
The Hazardous Waste Electronic Manifest Establishment Act (Pub. L. No. 112-195) required the system, commonly referred to as e-manifest, to be fully operational by Oct. 5, 2015, but the EPA now expects it will be ready for use no later than spring 2018.
Once completed, the system could save $75 million annually for industry compared to the current system of paper manifests. It could also save between 300,000 and 700,000 hours of time, according to the EPA.
But development of the e-manifest system has lagged due to insufficient congressional funding, hazardous waste industry officials have previously told Bloomberg BNA.
In February, the agency began soliciting nominations for a nine-member advisory board consisting of representatives from states and the hazardous waste and information technology industries. The board will assist in the development of the e-manifest system and it intends to begin its work no later than Oct. 5 (33 DEN A-5, 2/19/15).
In February 2014, the EPA issued a final rule (RIN 2050–AG20; 79 Fed. Reg. 7518) authorizing the use of electronic hazardous waste manifests under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (Pub. L. No. 94-580). Use of the electronic manifests will be voluntary, though the agency has said it will encourage their use to the greatest extent possible.
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Energy Industry Groups First to Sue EPA Over New Definition of Solid Waste
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Four associations representing the natural gas and electric power industry are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's recently promulgated definition of solid waste (RIN 2050-AG62), which the agency believes balances beneficial reuse of hazardous materials with greater human health and environmental safeguards (Utility Solid Waste Activities Group v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-01083, petition filed 4/9/15).
The Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, Edison Electric Institute, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the American Gas Association petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on April 9.
Attorneys for the groups were not available for comment on the reasons for the challenge, though some industry groups have previously raised concerns the final rule would create unnecessary restrictions on recycling operations. Additional petitions challenging the final rule are considered likely from environmental groups and would be due by April 13.
The EPA on Jan. 12 published final revisions to the 2008 version of the waste rule under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (80 Fed. Reg. 1694). The regulation allows certain types of byproducts from manufacturing operations to qualify for exemptions from hazardous waste regulations assuming they meet certain conditions (08 DEN A-1, 1/13/15).
Mining companies, metal producers and fabricators, chemical makers, and other manufacturers and recyclers are among the 5,000 entities expected to be regulated under the final rule, which takes effect July 12. The EPA has already begun an aggressive outreach effort to states and affected industries, urging them to fully adopt and implement the regulation.
Significant changes were made to the final rule during the White House Office of Management and Budget's review, according to Bloomberg BNA analysis. Among the most consequential was the creation of a “verified recycler” program to confirm the legitimacy of third-party recyclers of secondary hazardous materials (11 DEN A-3, 1/16/15).
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Worldwide Fluorocarbon Producers Launch New Website
Apr 10, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The organisation representing worldwide fluorocarbon producers has launched a new website.
The Global Fluorocarbon Producers Forum (GFPF) website features sections on fluorocarbon uses in everyday life. These include refrigeration, air conditioning, respiratory inhalers and foam blowing agents for insulation products.
It also presents the GFPF’s official positions on a number of key strategic issues, including the UN Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances, and lower global warming potential materials.
GFPF chairman Rich Rowe says the website will highlight the organisation's participation in scientific, technical and regulatory forums, and "represent our viewpoint to industry regulators, and NGOs around the world”.
Members of the GFPF include: Arkema, Daikin, DuPont, Gujarat Fluorochemicals Limited (GFL), Honeywell, Japan Fluorocarbon Manufacturers Association (JFMA), Mexichem, and Solvay.
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Lead Renovators Certifications Extended
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency will extend certifications of certain lead paint renovators while it completes a final rule that could change training requirements, the agency said in a separate final rule issued online April 9. The final rule extending the certifications will be effective the day it is published in the Federal Register. The final rule that would revise renovators training requirements is unlikely to be published until the end of 2015, the agency said. The agency said it is extending current certifications because those obtained by thousands of renovators would otherwise expire before the final training rule can be published. A prepublication copy of the certification-extension rule is available at http://www2.epa.gov/lead/prepublication-copy-notice-final-rule-lead-based-paint-programs-extension-renovator.
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(ACC Blog) An Energy and Water Efficiency Playground on California’s Capitol Lawn!
Apr 10, 2015 | American Chemistry Matters
Earlier this week, ACC joined groups from the energy and water efficiency sectors to demonstrate to California regulators and lawmakers how chemistry enables new and existing technologies that can help California meet its ambitious renewable energy and efficiency goals.
The pop-up expo took place on the lawn of the Capitol in Sacramento and also included information on water efficiency products. Attendees also learned more about the University of California at Davis’ California Lighting Technology Center’s efforts to reduce the amount of energy used to light California’s buildings and outdoor spaces. Comcast displayed products related to EcoSaver, a new cloud-based solution that learns heating and cooling patterns of a home for additional energy savings.
In his annual State of the State address in January, Governor Jerry Brown challenged the state to meet new and aggressive efficiency goals and renewed California’s focus on energy efficiency.
Chemistry has enabled the building and construction industry to develop products to help meet this challenge with a portfolio of materials that reduce energy and water consumption. For example, spray polyurethane foam insulation, which was showcased at the event, can reduce energy needs and costs for both residential and commercial buildings.
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Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Legislation that would alter the membership of the Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board is reminiscent of a legislative provision President Ronald Reagan vetoed in 1982, a former EPA and American Chemistry Council official recently told Bloomberg BNA.
“It substitutes membership by quota instead of by merit,” said Terry Yosie, director of the EPA Science Advisory Board from 1981 to 1988, who has served as a vice president of the chemistry council and a vice president of the American Petroleum Institute.
Yosie, now president and chief executive officer of the World Environment Center, discussed with Bloomberg BNA the proposed EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015 (H.R. 1029).
The House approved the bill March 17 on a near-party-line vote of 236-181. Two Democrats joined with all but one Republican to back the legislation (52 DEN A-14, 3/18/15).
Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) introduced an identical version of the bill, S. 543, on Feb. 24. As of April 9, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had not scheduled a hearing on the bill.
President Barack Obama has said he would veto the SAB Reform bill (42 DEN A-1, 3/4/15).
Reminiscent of 1982 Bill
The Science Advisory Board provides scientific advice to the agency on a wide range of issues, including chemical risk assessments, drinking water protection, economic assessments, radiation protection and ecological health.
The 1982 bill to which Yosie referred, S. 2577, would have amended the Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 (ERDDAA), which established the advisory board, to revise the board's membership selection process, guidelines for participation and terms of office. It also provided funding for the EPA, which Democrats at the time claimed was the target of Reagan's veto.
The SAB portions of 1982 bill would have required that representatives of state governments, industry, labor, academia, consumers and the general public serve on the advisory board.
H.R. 1029 also would amend ERDDAA to revise the process of selecting board members, guidelines for participation in board advisory activities and terms of office.
For example, the bill would require that at least 10 percent of the SAB's membership consist of scientists representing state, local or tribal governments.
The bill would allow more industry experts to serve on EPA's advisory board, said Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) in 2013 regarding identical legislation he introduced that year. Steward is a cosponsor of H.R. 1029.
To show that more industry experts are needed, Steward pointed to an SAB panel that had recently reviewed EPA hydraulic fracturing research.
That board included public health representatives but not representatives of the hydraulic fracturing industry, Stewart said (71 DEN A-6, 4/12/13).
The SAB has convened three panels since 2010 to examine issues related to hydraulic fracturing. Like most science advisory panels, academic researchers were predominantly represented, but scientists and engineers with experience at industry and environmental consulting firms also served on each panel.
Reagan Referenced Stalinism
H.R. 1029's strong Republican support during a Democratic administration reminded Yosie of the Democratic support for S. 2577 in 1982, when the Reagan administration was in charge of the EPA.
In his veto message, and as reported by BNA in 1982, Reagan said “enactment of S. 2577 would represent a major step backward in achieving the goal of assuring that our vitally important environmental research programs reflect the best judgement of the scientific community, unhampered by partisan or interest group politics.”
“This requirement runs counter to the basic premise of modern scientific thought as an objective undertaking in which the views of special interests have no role. The purpose of the Science Advisory Board is to apply the universally accepted principles of scientific peer review to the research conclusions that will form the basis for EPA regulations, a function that must remain above interest group politics,” the president wrote.
“The maintenance of a free, essentially self-governing scientific research community is one of the great strengths of our nation. To undermine this tradition by requiring that the scientists appointed to the EPA Science Advisory Board wear the label of ‘industry' or ‘labor' or ‘consumer' is a modern-day version of Lysenkoism to which I must strongly object,” Reagan wrote.
The term “Lysenkoism” was a metaphor that would have been more familiar at the time. It references the Soviet Union's Stalinist era and the manipulation of science to reach a predetermined, ideologically based conclusion.
Science Under Siege
Both H.R. 1029 and the SAB revisions that would have resulted from the 1982 bill stem from a lack of understanding about how science and peer review works, Yosie said.
“Sometimes science is under siege,” he said.
“People want scientists to say something is right or wrong. Science is never that clear,” Yosie said. “Science is nuanced.”
“Politicians and their staffs have a particularly hard time accepting that,” he added.
Requiring the SAB to allocate a specific percentage of advisory board positions to designated groups is a political tactic, not a reform intended to improve the scientific basis of the board's advice, Yosie said.
H.R. 1029's provision that would require SAB panel members to publicly disclose their financial relationships and interests, professional activities, public statements and EPA grants, cooperative agreements or other agency assistance received tramples on civil liberties and would provide a hunting ground to dive into scientists' 401(k)s, Yosie said.
“That would have a devastating impact on the ability to recruit scientific professionals,” he said.
“I hope this legislation goes to an early grave. it's fundamentally a waste of time and taxpayers' money,” Yosie said.
Praise for EPA From Reagan-Era ORD Administrator
Bernard Goldstein, an environmental toxicologist who served from 1983-1985, during the Reagan administration, as assistant administrator for research and development at the EPA, told BNA by e-mail: “It is ironic that Congress is aiming its alleged ‘Science Reform Act’ at EPA.”
“EPA has long been recognized for its cutting edge approaches to involving the broad scientific community, including industry scientists, in intensive and extensive reviews of its research and of the scientific basis for its decisions.
“Moreover, it continues to be a national and global leader in enhancing its processes to respond to the public's demands for ever more transparency and inclusiveness,” Goldstein said. He has served on numerous National Academies advisory panels and is a former dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
SAB's Openness Initiative
Christopher Zarba, director of the EPA's SAB staff office, declined to comment on the legislation.
He did, however, provide Bloomberg BNA with a summary of actions the board has taken since 2013 as part of its Openness, Transparency and Balance Initiative. Zarba, who has directed the staff office since January 2013, said he prepared the summary as personal notes for his own use during performance reviews with his manager.
In 2013, Zarba said he recognized the SAB would be reviewing high-profile issues such as hydraulic fracturing, water connectivity and the chemical health assessments conducted by the agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program.
He therefore met with industry, scientific and environmental health organizations to get their perspectives on how the SAB could be improved.
Actions the SAB office has taken in response include enlarging scientific advisory panels that will evaluate high-profile issues, webcasting SAB meetings and posting preliminary board member and public comments prior to and after an advisory board meeting.
More people are currently watching SAB meetings and commenting on the issues before the board than in the past, Zarba said.
Zarba has received congressional staff e-mails asking questions in the middle of meetings, he said.
Deluge of Comments on Water Connectivity
Some meetings also have attracted an unusual quantity of public comments, he said.
Since the SAB was established in 1978, the board had never received more than 400 comments about any EPA issue it examined, Zarba said.
The SAB has typically received fewer than 100 comments as it conducted reviews of scientific issues related to dioxins, biogenic carbon emissions and IRIS assessments, according to information SAB staff provided BNA.
The SAB Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan Review Panel received about 320 comments.
In a break from that pattern, the board was deluged with comments as it reviewed a draft EPA water connectivity study that established linkages between stream, wetlands and downstream waters.
The science the SAB reviewed is helping shape the agency's waters of the U.S. rule (11 DEN A-7, 1/16/15).
The preamble to the proposed waters of the U.S. rule and the draft connectivity study rule provide “an adequate scientific and technical basis for the proposed rule,” the SAB concluded in a Sept. 30 letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy (193 DEN A-14, 10/6/14).
The SAB received 133,100 comments as it conducted its meetings to review the agency's draft Water Body Connectivity report.
Increasing the scientific perspectives represented on the board and that the board receives is good, Zarba said. The goal, he said, is to encourage robust scientific discussions with all views on the table.
“I'm always on the hunt for ways to increase openness, transparency and balance,” Zarba said. “There's nothing I can think of that we could be doing that we're not.”
Yosie agreed. The SAB Reform Act would add nothing to the efforts the board already is making, he said.
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Legislation to Allow Fracking Permits In 2017 Clears Maryland General Assembly
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Kathy Lundy Springuel
Maryland could start issuing permits for hydraulic fracturing on Oct. 1, 2017, under legislation (H.B. 449) that cleared the General Assembly April 10.
The bill would instruct the Maryland Department of the Environment to adopt fracking regulations by Oct. 1, 2016, and put them into effect one year later, after which time permits could be issued.
The measure doesn't mention what the regulations would have to address.
Erin Montgomery, spokeswoman for Gov. Larry Hogan (R), told Bloomberg BNA in an April 10 e-mail that the governor is reviewing the legislation and hasn't taken a position.
No fracking is being performed in Maryland because former Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) imposed a moratorium in 2011 while conducting a study that formed the basis for strict regulations proposed just before he left office (07 DEN A-8, 1/12/15).
The Hogan administration has neither promulgated nor withdrawn those regulations, previously described by O'Malley as “the gold standard” in best management practices.
Would Effectively Extend Moratorium
If implemented as currently proposed, the regulations would set strict performance standards for all aspects of fracking and would effectively extend O'Malley's moratorium because shale gas developers would have to conduct two years of baseline environmental monitoring before seeking a permit.
According to the MDE, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in 2011 that Maryland has less than 2 percent of the total gas in the Marcellus Shale formation, where fracking is used in natural gas exploration and production.
H.B. 449 reached final passage when the House agreed with the Senate's amendments to the bill.
The House had previously passed a version of H.B. 449 that would have placed a three-year moratorium on fracking permits and then allowed them only after a 10-member panel assessed whether the practice could be conducted with no harm to public health or the environment (57 DEN A-11, 3/25/15).
With time running out in the 2015 legislative session, the House signed off on the Senate amendments and passed the bill 102-34.
The Senate had voted 45-2 in favor of H.B. 449 as amended April 7.
Strict Liability Bill Pending
Earlier in the session, the Senate also passed S.B. 458, which would adopt a strict liability standard for drillers without the need to show negligence.
That measure remained in a House committee as of April 10, with just days remaining until scheduled adjournment April 13.
If enacted, S.B. 458 would increase insurance mandates, require drillers to disclose to a plaintiff the chemical constituents used in fracking and bar any contract that waived the right to bring an action against a permittee or reduced any liability for injury, death or loss to a person or property that was caused by fracking.
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Greens Press Clinton to Oppose Fracking
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
More than 100 environmental groups are pressuring former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to oppose hydraulic fracturing, days before her expected presidential campaign announcement.
The coalition of mostly local anti-fracking groups noted that New York, the likely host to her campaign and the state she represented in the Senate for eight years, banned fracking in December.
“In light of overwhelming and rapidly increasing scientific evidence of harm, we ask that you now acknowledge the inherent dangers in shale development and stand with us and the countless families and communities at risk from fracking across the nation,” the groups wrote in a Friday letter.
“We implore you to listen to the science, listen to the pleas of mothers and fathers who don’t want their children to breathe or drink toxic chemicals, and join the anti-fracking majority,” said the groups, which include actor Mark Ruffalo.
The groups took the opportunity in the letter to criticize Clinton’s record on fracking, a highly controversial oil and natural gas drilling process in which water and chemical additives are pumped into wells at high pressure.
Greens have long said fracking threatens groundwater, soil and air quality, and that the gas it helps produce contributes to climate change.
But fracking has led an energy renaissance in the United States, making the country the top natural gas and oil producer in the world.
As secretary of State, Clinton promoted fracking globally as a way to increase energy security. The letter called that decision “gravely disappointing.”
Clinton later said natural gas can be a “bridge” fuel toward greater use of renewable energy, which the environmentalists said was wrong.
Fracking is not the only issue on which environmentalists are frustrated with Clinton.
They have also pressured her to come out in opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline, an issue she has largely avoided, owing to her position as secretary of State.
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Subcommittee to Probe Crude Export Ban
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Nick Juliano
The ban on exporting crude oil is in line for renewed attention in the House this week, as a subcommittee chairman who hopes to lift the ban convenes a hearing aimed at helping to build that case.
Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who leads the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, is co-sponsoring a bill that would lift restrictions on crude exports that have been in place since the mid-1970s. Tomorrow, his subcommittee will hear from three experts who have previously said the ban is outdated and ripe for reconsideration.
The subcommittee postponed a markup of H.R. 702, the bill to lift the ban Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) introduced earlier this year, to allow time for this week's hearing. The Energy and Commerce Committee, which also has jurisdiction over the bill, held a subcommittee hearing earlier this year but has not announced plans for a markup.
U.S. oil producers and their allies have argued that the export ban, which was first imposed amid the oil crises of the 1970s, is outdated in an era of rising oil production spurred by the light, tight oil being extracted from shale formations in Texas, North Dakota and several other states. Further, producers argue that refiners more accustomed to heavier crudes are not well-equipped to handle the current glut.
But refiners argue that they can handle domestic supplies for the immediate future and say lifting the crude export ban should not be done without considering other laws such as the renewable fuel standard or the Jones Act, which requires U.S.-manufactured ships and crews be used to transport goods from one domestic port to another. Environmentalists also have been wary of lifting the export ban because of its potential to promote additional oil production that would increase greenhouse gas emissions among other pollutants.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration last week released the latest in a series of reports examining the status of the U.S. oil industry in the context of the ongoing energy boom and push for more exports. The report outlines technical options for refineries to accommodate growing supplies of light oil (EnergyWire, April 7).
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, April 14, at 10:15 a.m. in 2172 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Michele Flournoy, co-founder and CEO of the Center for a New American Security; Jason Grumet, founder and president of the Bipartisan Policy Center; and Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
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US Plans New Offshore Drilling Rule
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration will release a new rule as soon as Monday that aims to prevent offshore drilling disasters like the major Gulf of Mexico oil spill five years ago.
The Interior Department’s rule will be timed to coincide with the anniversary of the explosion at BP’s Macondo well on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, which killed 11 and caused a uncontrolled oil spill for 87 days, the New York Times reported late Friday.
The regulation would set strict new standards for blowout preventers, which act as part a drilling rig’s backup systems for stopping oil and gas well explosions.
The BP disaster was blamed in part on a pipe that buckled, but the rig’s blowout preventer did not work as intended.
The blowout preventer standards would be the third major regulation the Obama administration has published in response to the BP spill. The disaster also resulted in a complete overhaul of Interior’s regulatory structure for offshore drilling, including spinning off the safety oversight into its own agency.
It will come shortly after the administration proposed to allow some offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean, and while it considers whether Royal Dutch Shell should be allowed to drill in the Arctic Ocean.
Regulators need to show that they can effectively oversee the industry, the Times said.
“We’re coming on five years, and we’ve been working tirelessly in the regulation division since it happened,” Allyson Anderson, associate director of strategic engagement in Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, told the Times. “We’ve doubled down on building a culture of safety.”
Environmentalists told the Times they were skeptical that the federal government’s actions are going far enough in improving offshore safety.
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Lawmakers Set to Spar Over Leasing Plan
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
A House Natural Resources subpanel will consider the Obama administration's draft five-year offshore leasing plan Wednesday, spotlighting an ongoing debate in Congress over how best to manage the nation's offshore energy resources.
Republicans on the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee claim that the Interior Department's 2017-22 blueprint doesn't open enough offshore acreage to leasing and limits deepwater oil and gas projects.
The federal government "must allow for more rapid development and more sales" to offshore energy producers, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), a member of the panel, said at a hearing on the issue last month (E&E Daily, March 18).
Interior says the plan, which won't be finalized until 2017, would give companies access to nearly 80 percent of the undiscovered, recoverable fossil fuel resources on the outer continental shelf.
The proposal would open up to 317 million acres of coastline to oil and gas drilling, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The total is roughly 97 million acres more than the current five-year plan and 134 million acres more than the previous offshore leasing plan under President George W. Bush, the agency said.
The potential increase in leasing acreage is proof that the Obama administration remains committed to offshore energy development, BOEM Director Abigail Hopper said at the hearing in March.
Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) disagreed, citing a recent industry study that counted 49 drilling rigs off the Gulf Coast in mid-March, down from an annual average of 94 in the region in 2004.
GOP lawmakers attributed the drop to drilling regulations put in place by President Obama after BP PLC's 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 workers and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Hopper will face a similar line of attack when she appears before the subpanel again Wednesday, a GOP aide said. "Director Hopper should come prepared to explain how [the five-year plan] is anything more than a step in the wrong direction," the aide said.
At the same time, BOEM officials will also face pressure from House Democrats on the subpanel who believe that increasing offshore oil and gas production could lead to more spills. Critics of the proposal have also argued that the Obama administration should be investing more in offshore wind instead of fossil fuels that drive up carbon emissions (E&ENews PM, Jan. 27).
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, April 15, at 10 a.m. in 1334 Longworth.
Witnesses: North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory; Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Abigail Hopper; Mark Shuster, executive vice president of Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Upstream Americas division; Robert Hobbs, TGS CEO; Chett Chiasson, executive director of the Greater Lafourche Port Commission; and Emilie Swearingen, commissioner of Kure Beach, N.C.
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New U.S. Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling Rules Seen Imminent
Apr 11, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder & Russell Gold
The Obama administration is expected to propose in the coming days an offshore oil and natural gas drilling regulation aimed at preventing the kind of explosion that erupted five years ago on BP ’s Deepwater Horizon rig, killing 11 people and causing the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The Interior Department draft rule, which has long been expected by the industry, would impose tougher standards on that blowout preventers, which are designed to seal off oil wells in emergencies. This equipment failed in the April 2010 disaster, which helped lead to the explosion on the BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
An Interior Department spokeswoman on Saturday wouldn't say when the administration would issue the rule. But oil-industry officials say it could come imminently.
The spokeswoman said the department has issued two major regulations on drilling safety since 2010, including tougher requirements on well casings and cementing practices of wells. She stressed the latest rule would be a continuation of the administration’s policy response to the spill.
Environmentalists have pushed for Congress to pass legislation in response to the oil spill, hoping lawmakers would embed tougher standards into law, making them more difficult to undo. In the years since the oil spill, however, legislative efforts have broken down over a number of issues, particularly the degree to which oil companies should be held liable for damage from such spills.
The New York Times first reported the regulation’s imminent announcement on Saturday.
The new federal rules are focused on the blowout preventer, a several-story tall set of valves that typically sit on the ocean floor and are designed to sever the well and shut it down in case of an emergency. In 2010, the blowout preventer failed to work as expected, leaving a gushing well on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
In 2011, engineers working for federal investigators probing the Deepwater catastrophe, said the emergency shut-off valves partially closed. However these valves came within 1.4 inches of sealing the well—but remained open, allowing crude oil to escape.
Later, a different federal investigation by the Chemical Safety Board concluded the pipe running from the floating drilling platform to the subsea oil well buckled, making it impossible for the blowout preventer to cut it and seal off the well. Last year, a member of the investigation said pipe buckling could render even the best maintained blowout preventers unable to shut down a well in an emergency.
The failure of the blowout preventer has been one focus of investigators, but the investigations into Deepwater Horizon incident found many systemic problems, from poorly designed blowout preventers to poor choices by workers aboard the drilling rig and government oversight that was too close to the offshore drilling industry.
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Management Regimes for Drilling Wastes Can Vary Widely by State, Regulators Find
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Resurgent oil and gas production in the U.S. has significantly increased volumes of generated waste but states have widely varying regulatory programs for managing the by-products, a report from state waste management officials concludes.
States have “significant challenges” associated with disposal or beneficial reuse of ballooning quantities of oil and gas production wastes, according to the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials report.
Forty states responded to the ASTSWMO survey, which the association said would help the Environmental Protection Agency and individual states properly manage the wastes. The report was posted the week of April 6.
“The increased number of development sites, and the higher volumes of waste generated, pose a special challenge for the proper management of these wastes, whether by disposal (with or without treatment) or beneficial use,” according to the report. “This survey supports the conclusion that significant challenges exist for disposal and beneficial use of [exploration and production] wastes.”
Waste streams from oil and gas exploration include drill cuttings, produced water, water- and oil-based drilling fluids, spent fracking fluids, basic sediments and servicing fluids.
Thirty-one of the 40 states responding to the survey indicated they regulate energy oil and gas production wastes while nine said they do not. Of the 40 responsive states, 27 said they generated the wastes in question, while 13 said they did not.
Regulatory entities overseeing the waste streams ranged from state environmental departments, specific oil and gas regulatory departments and several state transportation or radiation departments, according to the report.
Beneficial Reuse Limited
Significant opportunities exist for beneficial reuse of the waste products, and regulatory officials expect interest in the practice will continue to expand as the quantities of waste continue to grow.
“The advantages of beneficial use, if safe, include providing an effective substitute for a virgin or conventional material, reducing space needed for disposal, conserving energy that would otherwise be needed to mine or create conventional materials, and realization of cost savings for both procuring conventional materials and avoiding disposal of the drilling waste,” the report stated.
Thirteen states indicated they had approved beneficial reuse of certain waste products, while 11 states said they had not approved beneficial reuse of the oil and gas generation byproducts.
Waste products have been reused in landfill cover, the manufacture of concrete barriers, in a road base application, as a de-icing solution and as fracking fluids.
Certain states have barred the reuse of some oil and gas exploration wastes directly on land, on roadways and as fill material in other projects.
ASTSWMO also recommended additional study of potential beneficial reuse applications of the oil and gas exploration and production wastes.
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Administration Formally Starts Review of Shell’s Arctic Drilling Plan
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration formally kicked off its full review Friday of Royal Dutch Shell’s application to restart oil and natural gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean.
Shell hopes to drill an exploratory well this summer in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska, and it has a lease on the area’s drilling rights. But before Shell can drill, its detailed drilling plan must pass federal muster.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said Friday that it completed its preliminary review of Shell’s March 31 application and determined that it can move on to full review.
“We will be carefully scrutinizing this revised [exploration plan] to determine whether it meets stringent environmental and regulatory standards,” James Kendall, the director of BOEM’s Alaska offshore region, said in a statement.
BOEM has 30 days to review the application and prepare an environmental assessment of it. The agency also released the plan publicly and is inviting public comment on it.
Shell’s application still has to go through various other federal approvals, including reviews for safety, protection of wildlife and wastewater disposal plans.
Shell’s Arctic drilling has been under close scrutiny since it drilled an exploratory well in 2012 and its rig later ran aground on an Alaska island after a severe winter storm.
The company said it was pleased to pass the first part of the application process.
“The execution of our plan remains contingent on achieving the necessary permits, legal certainty and our own determination that we are prepared to explore safely and responsibly,” Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said in a statement. “We continue to work on securing the final permits needed to continue exploration.”
Environmentalists immediately blasted the plan.
“Drilling in the Arctic is a recipe for disaster,” Neil Lawrence, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Alaska program, said in a statement. “The harsh conditions in the region make it all-but impossible to clean up the inevitable oil spills. The department’s rush to allow Shell back to the Arctic is foolhardy, misguided and wrong.”
Susan Murray, deputy vice president of Oceana, said the decision is disappointing, and that Shell doesn’t deserve another chance.
“Shell’s 2012 failures demonstrated clearly that it is not prepared to operate safely or responsibly in the Arctic Ocean,” she said. “There is no compelling reason for the rush to give Shell another chance this summer.”
Shell faces another hurdle in its plan to drill in the Arctic. Six Greenpeace activists are currently camped out on one of the ships carrying equipment through the Pacific Ocean to Alaska, and Shell is seeking a federal court order to remove them.
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Shell Exploration Plan for 2015 in Arctic Submitted for BOEM Review, Public Comment
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Royal Dutch Shell Plc has filed a revised exploration plan to drill up to six wells in the Chukchi Sea this summer by using a drillship and a floating drilling platform that will back each other up in the event of problems, according to a document posted April 10 for public comment.
The plan for the Burger prospect in Arctic waters due west of Barrow, Alaska—if approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management—would involve moving the drilling units into the Chukchi Sea “on or about” July 1 and working until about Oct. 31.
BOEM, an Interior Department agency, announced April 10 it was inviting public comment through May 1 on the exploration plan. The agency said it also will take comments through April 20 on any issues BOEM should consider in preparing an environmental analysis for the exploration plan.
At least one comment was issued the same day as the announcement. The Natural Resources Defense Council released a statement from its Alaska director, Niel Lawrence, who said Interior's “rush to allow Shell back to the Arctic is foolhardy, misguided and wrong,” especially because of the difficulty of cleaning up oil spills.
The agency has until May 10 to review the plan and determine its acceptability, notably its conformity to environmental and safety requirements.
Fourth Time Around for Plan
The lease blocks on the Burger prospect are among the sites won by Shell in Lease Sale 193 in 2008. A final supplemental environmental impact statement on the lease sale was issued in February and affirmed by a record of decision in March (30 DEN A-11, 2/13/15).
The plan was submitted by subsidiary Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. as Revision 2 of the exploration plan. The initial plan was submitted in 2009 but blocked by a suspension of Outer Continental Shelf drilling activities in 2010 after BP Plc's Macondo well blew out beneath the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
Revision 1 was submitted in 2011 for the drilling that occurred in 2012. The drillship Noble Discoverer worked in 2012 at the Burger prospect, where a well was drilled to a depth of 1,505 feet before the short drilling season ended.
Second Version of Revision 2
In August 2014, Shell submitted its first version of Revision 2. The latest version, received by BOEM March 31 and “deemed submitted” April 10, replaced the 2014 document but retained the same revision number.
For 2015, Shell is proposing to use the Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer, a Transocean Ltd. semisubmersible platform, to work different blocks of the Burger prospect at the same time. Each drilling unit will be able to drill a relief well for the other unit in the event of a loss of well control, the exploration plan said.
A fleet of about 25 ships, tugs and barges would support the drilling rigs. Among the barges would be the Arctic Challenger, which would carry a containment dome for subsea use in the event of a loss of well control.
The barge with the containment system would be stationed within Kotzebue Sound on the west coast of Alaska about 500 miles south of the drilling sites.
Aircraft to Support Work
Four helicopters and two fixed-wing planes also would support the work. About 40 round-trip helicopter flights each week would provide crew changes and resupply. The fixed-wing aircraft would be used for protected species monitoring and ice monitoring daily.
The plan was submitted while BOEM's proposed tougher standards are receiving public comments (63 DEN A-1, 4/2/15).
Comments may be filed on the exploration plan and the planned environmental analysis via two links on the BOEM webpage for the Shell Chukchi Sea plan.
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Obama Admin Formally Accepts Shell's Application To Drill This Summer
Apr 10, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
The Obama administration today formally accepted Royal Dutch Shell PLC's application to drill in the American Arctic this summer, a move that gives regulators only 30 days to decide whether the oil company can move forward with its plans.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management also announced a two-phase public comment period for Shell's revised exploration plan.
For the next 10 days, the Interior Department will accept comments on the issues BOEM should consider in preparing an environmental assessment on Shell's drilling proposal. The public also has 21 days to comment directly on the oil company's plan.
The multinational oil and gas conglomerate is proposing to drill up to six wells on its Chukchi Sea leases, which are located about 70 miles northwest of the Alaska Native village of Wainwright.
Shell is proposing to conduct its operations using the drillship Noble Discoverer and the semi-submersible drilling unit Transocean Polar Pioneer, with each vessel providing relief well capability for the other.
BOEM's announcement came hours before the Anglo-Dutch company is scheduled to appear in federal court in Anchorage to challenge Greenpeace's campaign to stop the company from drilling in the American Arctic during this year's open water season.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason is scheduled to hear oral arguments late today on Shell's motion for a temporary restraining order against the six Greenpeace activists who climbed onto the company's drill rig Polar Pioneer on Monday as it was being hauled across the Pacific Ocean (EnergyWire, April 10).
In its complaint to the court, Shell noted that the company has already spent $7 billion in a so-far-unsuccessful effort to sink a drill bit into the hydrocarbon zone at its remote Alaska lease sites. This year's Chukchi exploration program is expected to cost more than $1 billion.
The company has struggled to determine how much oil is available on its Arctic leases. In 2012, Shell sent an armada of vessels to the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, but failed to gain the federal permits needed to complete its drill program.
Since then, devastating equipment failures, management problems and legal issues have prevented the company from returning to the Arctic until this year.
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Oil Industry Tries to Prove Science is Unscientific
Apr 10, 2015 | The Hill
By Erik Molvar
In the latest salvo in a war against science, the Western Energy Alliance joined other oil industry interests and a smattering of county governments to launch three complaints against scientific reports on sage grouse, claiming they don't meet scientific standards. The bottom line: They think the science is unscientific.
To an industry comfortable with big-money influence peddling and power politics, the objective findings of independent scientists pose a dangerous threat. Last week, the fossil fuel lobby ascended to the highest pinnacle of hubris and planted their flag on it, attacking not only well-referenced government reports on sage grouse science, but even an independent scientific publication itself.
The industry groups and their allies lodged the complaints this week with three federal agencies under the Data Quality Act. Congress passed this obscure law during the George W. Bush administration to muzzle scientific input into federal policy, in an effort to block "regulation by information."
First on the hit list is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Conservation Objectives Team report. True, the Conservation Objectives Team was a state-federal collaboration including non-scientists like Bob Budd of the state of Wyoming, who was there to advance the state's political agenda. But beyond identifying "priority and general habitats" (based partially on a scientific study mapping sage grouse density, and partially on favors to extractive industries granted by state governments and collaborative committees) and identifying different primary threats to the bird in different regions, this report does very little to direct conservation efforts. To the limited extent that this report makes conservation recommendations, published science is cited.
The second target of the oil industry is the Greater Sage-grouse National Technical Team report, published in 2011 by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Authored by sage grouse biologists from state and federal agencies across the West, this report undertakes a comprehensive review of the best available science on the threats facing sage grouse, and recommends habitat protection levels based on the science. Despite federal laws that direct agencies to take a science-based "hard look" at every federal project before approval, such a thorough review of the available science as the National Technical Team did wasn't just rare, but unprecedented for the BLM. Just about every statement contained in this report is referenced to scientific studies that are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals refereed by independent scientists themselves.
Perhaps the crown jewel of the complaints targets the United States Geological Survey for its supporting role in a sage grouse monograph published by the scientific journal Studies in Avian Biology. In this volume, the nation's most eminent sage grouse scientists authored articles chronicling the century-long dwindling of the sage grouse and focusing on many of the activities responsible for the bird's decline. It's not even a government publication, but a compendium of scientific studies that has passed the rigorous peer review of academia and itself constitutes independent science. It's as if this gaggle of petroleum executives and low-level politicians is saying to the scientific community, "We know science, and you're not science."
Ironically, one of the scientists targeted by the industry complaint is Matt Holloran, whom the oil industry funded for his 2005 Ph.D. research into oil and gas and sage grouse in western Wyoming. Clearly, the industry was hoping for evidence that its activities were having little impact on wildlife. What it got was groundbreaking research demonstrating for the first time that gas wells and roads within two miles of sage grouse leks drive grouse populations toward extinction, even after the drilling rigs are gone and the wells are producing quietly.
Apparently industry members doesn't like the results, because now, a full decade later, they complain about this very study being cited nine times by the National Technical Team and twice by the Conservation Objectives Team.
Every time scientists publish their conclusions, the oil industry loses more ground. Having lost the scientific debate, industry is turning on the scientists in an effort to squelch insights into their industry's environmental consequences and cast doubt on established science itself.
Published studies have linked fracking to water contamination and earthquakes, triggering industry-backed cover-ups. The Western Energy Alliance has long backed climate-denier politicians who cast doubt on the growing scientific consensus that the changing climate is human-caused and poses a major threat to human populations, agriculture, business and healthy ecosystems on land and in the sea throughout the world. Today, sage grouse science has become the inconvenient truth.
The scientific results are in, and it's unanimous: Traditional oil and gas development is incompatible with the survival of sage grouse populations. Now that an overwhelming avalanche of science has demonstrated that the oil and gas industry lies at the root of an ecological collapse across the Rockies (with the sage grouse as Exhibit A), federal laws have been triggered requiring conservation efforts to be based on science, and something has to change.
Industry's response: Get rid of science.
The message of the oil industry's sage grouse public-relations stunt is clear: Let's get those pesky scientists out of the way so we can get back to politics as usual. Fossil fuels are a dirty business, which has translated into fighting a dirty war on science as well.
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EPA Unsure About Deadline Extensions For State Clean Power Plan Compliance
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is open to revising interim carbon dioxide emissions reductions targets in its Clean Power Plan, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will grant states additional time to comply, Administrator Gina McCarthy said.
The EPA has repeatedly said it would be open to revising those interim targets in response to concerns raised by states that those early targets, which must be met between 2020 and 2029, are too stringent. However, McCarthy stopped short of saying the agency would push back those deadlines during an April 10 climate change forum at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business sponsored by the New Republic.
“The interim goal, for me, is essential because the EPA doesn't tend to set goals that are so far out,” McCarthy said.
However, McCarthy said she acknowledges states' concerns and agreed that the stringency of those targets may drive states to pursue new natural gas-fired power plants as the most convenient compliance measure, limiting investment in renewable generation or energy efficiency programs.
That's a concern McCarthy said the EPA will need to address in its final Clean Power Plan, expected this summer.
“There's lots of reasons to take this seriously, but that doesn't mean you push it out,” McCarthy said.
Would Set Unique CO2 Emissions Rates
The proposed Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), issued under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, would establish unique carbon dioxide emissions rates for the power sector in each state.
The EPA rule would be implemented by states, which would determine how best to achieve the emissions targets using four “building blocks” to achieve reductions: heat rate improvements at power plants, shifting dispatch from coal to natural gas, investment in renewable or nuclear generation and energy efficiency programs.
States would be required to meet interim targets between 2020 and 2029, with a final emissions rate to be achieved in 2030.
McCarthy said the goal of the proposal is to build upon measures states are already taking to curb carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector.
“What we've set out in our Clean Power Plan is actually based on what's already happening, what states are already doing,” she said.
Up-front Reductions Concern States
States have repeatedly raised concerns with the interim emissions targets, which require many to achieve the majority of the Clean Power Plan's required emissions reductions within a few years of finalizing their compliance plans.
The EPA has seemed responsive to those concerns with both McCarthy and Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for air and radiation, publicly indicating that the agency would address that issue in the final rule.
“We've been getting pretty strong signals that's the lowest hanging fruit on concessions,” Clint Woods, executive director of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, told Bloomberg BNA April 10.
Many states in their public comments on the proposed rule suggested the interim targets be eliminated entirely or that states be allowed to determine the best glidepath toward achieving that 2030 emissions rate with periodic demonstrations to the EPA that they are on track to achieve that goal.
“There are a few states telling us we're too aggressive, it's too sharp, too steep a cliff,” McCarthy said.
Could Phase in Required Reductions
Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, suggested the EPA could potentially phase in the required emissions reductions over the 10-year compliance period rather than mandating that most of the carbon dioxide emissions reductions be achieved up front.
“There would be little opposition to EPA changing the 2020 start date for the interim reductions to a more manageable time frame,” Becker told Bloomberg BNA April 10.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Childers in Washington at achi
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House Panel, Mccabe Face Off On 'Just Say No' Bill
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
A key House Energy and Commerce Committee subpanel will hear testimony this week on draft legislation to allow states to opt out of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
EPA air chief Janet McCabe will headline tomorrow's hearing on a draft bill sponsored by Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), which would grant all states a reprieve from deadlines to submit state implementation plans (SIPs) for the existing power plant carbon rule until judicial review has concluded. It would also let governors refuse to comply even then if they decide the rule will drive up electricity rates or harm grid reliability (E&E Daily, March 24).
The measure would bar EPA from implementing a federal plan to regulate power plants in states that do not comply. McCabe and her Office of Air and Radiation staff are crafting a federal model now for release this summer.
Whitfield has offered his bill as a more moderate alternative to simply scrapping the rule. The subcommittee chairman told reporters last month that he hoped the approach would garner Democratic support, including in the Senate. He plans to move it quickly through regular order, with a markup expected soon. But he said it would also play a role in focusing public attention on the rule's impacts.
"We are going to do everything possible so that the American people are aware of the effort made by EPA to control the electric generating system in each state," he said.
But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said last week at the University of Chicago that the draft rule is a perfect example of cooperative federalism as embodied in the Clean Air Act. States have wide discretion to meet the federally set targets through whatever means they choose, she said, and EPA is eyeing tweaks to the final version that would make it even more responsive to state concerns.
The rule as proposed would require power plants to cut emissions by 30 percent nationwide by 2030, often by shuttering coal units. It is set to be final this summer.
The Clean Power Plan's proponents say states will have more control if they choose to plot their own course on compliance, but Republican lawmakers led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) advise states that are skeptical of the plan not to do so. EPA's rule is likely to be knocked down in court, they say -- a point Whitfield's bill seeks to underline with its provision delaying the SIP deadline until litigation ends.
Murray Energy Co. and 13 states aim to put the Clean Power Plan to an early test, suing to prevent EPA from finalizing it on the grounds that the statute bars EPA from regulating power plants for greenhouse gases because it is already regulating them for mercury and other air toxics. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments Thursday.
But McCarthy dismissed the challenge last week, saying, "I am entirely confident that we are on the right side."
Even if the rule survives court challenges, its opponents say a federal plan may still be less stringent than the plans EPA hopes to persuade states to write themselves because the federal agency has fewer compliance tools at its disposal.
Many of the witnesses who will join McCabe on the dais tomorrow support this "just say no" strategy and legislation to bar EPA from implementing the rule itself.
The witnesses include Eugene Trisko, who will speak on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and who called the rule "a neutron bomb aimed directly at the heart" of the coal industry at a recent Senate field hearing.
Lisa Johnson, CEO and general manager of Seminole Electric Cooperative Inc., will represent the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Rural electric co-ops, which are heavily invested in coal, have been almost as staunchly critical of the EPA rule as the industry has been.
Kevin Sunday, manager for government affairs at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, and Paul Cicio, president of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America, are the other Republican-invited witnesses.
Cicio said in a recent interview that the power plant rule will harm manufacturing, not only by driving up the cost of energy but by setting precedent for restrictions on other sectors.
Under the power plant rule, he said, states would have to "re-engineer their power grids" and enact numerous laws to support state plans that might never go into effect if the courts invalidate the rule. That argues for a stay on state plans until litigation is settled, he said.
But environmentalists note that plaintiffs can already ask courts to stay rules if certain conditions are met -- including if they are likely to be overturned and would cause irreparable harm in the meantime. Courts are unlikely to see the obligation to craft a compliance strategy by deadlines beginning next year as a threat sufficient to warrant a stay, they say.
Susan Tierney, senior adviser for the Analysis Group, will round out the hearing. Tierney has authored several analyses arguing that the rule would pose no threat to grid reliability, and she said during a recent appearance on E&ETV that states would be better off promulgating their own SIPs (Greenwire, Feb. 19).
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, April 14, at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Janet McCabe, acting assistant EPA administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation; Eugene Trisko, energy economist and attorney on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity; Lisa Johnson, CEO and general manager of Seminole Electric Cooperative Inc. on behalf of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; Kevin Sunday, manager for government affairs at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry; Paul Cicio, president of the Industrial Energy Consumers of America; and Susan Tierney, senior adviser for the Analysis Group.
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D.C. Circuit to Hear Legal Challenges to EPA Rule
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Rod Kuckro & Emily Holden
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments Thursday morning in two cases brought by 15 states and energy companies seeking to block U.S. EPA from finalizing its greenhouse gas standards for power plants.
Led by West Virginia and the Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., the challengers are asking the D.C. Circuit to issue an "extraordinary writ" to prevent EPA from promulgating the Clean Power Plan this summer.
Tomorrow, a House Energy subcommittee will look at draft legislation to allow states to opt out of the EPA plan.
Go to E&E's Power Plan Hub to read more and to see the latest news, state summaries and developments.
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The Dirty Secret of Obama’s Carbon Plan
Apr 12, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Warner Baxter
Americans don’t give much thought to whether their electricity will be there when they need it. You flip a switch, the lights go on. Your phone charges up. The medical equipment in the emergency room does its job. Yet electric reliability, long a bedrock of this country’s prosperity and high standard of living, does not come as easily as its steady presence might suggest.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, a proposed regulation limiting carbon emissions from existing coal-fired plants, threatens to jeopardize the reliability that Americans and businesses have come to depend upon. The EPA proposal calls for states to cut emissions by 30% from 2005 levels by 2030. It also imposes aggressive interim targets starting in 2020 that will test states’ ability to meet these standards without disrupting service. For example, 39 states must achieve more than 50% of their final target by 2020.
Reliable power requires decades of careful planning. The appropriate amount and type of round-the-clock generation capacity, transmission and distribution lines must be finely balanced in advance to ensure the lights go on when a switch is flipped anywhere in the U.S. The EPA plan will significantly impair that planning process.
The EPA’s proposal is causing concern among those who provide electricity for a living. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held an event in St. Louis on March 31, the last in a series of conferences on the implications of the plan. The North American Electric Reliability Corp., a nonprofit oversight group, has said the EPA plan could constitute “a significant reliability challenge, given the constrained time period for implementation.”
These concerns are driven in large part by the planned retirement, mostly thanks to the EPA’s carbon plan, of about one-third of America’s coal-fired power plants by 2020. This represents enough generating capacity to supply the residential electricity of about 57 million Americans. That’s a lot of power being taken off the grid in a very short period.
It takes years to site, permit and construct replacement power plants, and EPA’s compliance timeline does not account for this reality. For example, if a new gas-fired power plant must be built to meet the EPA’s 2020 interim target, all permitting and development would need to be completed by 2017. But that is impossible because state compliance plans might not even be submitted to the EPA until 2017 or 2018, and the agency has said it may take up to a year to approve them.
Beyond that, opening new natural-gas plants, as well as operating existing plants at higher levels, will require new pipeline infrastructure, and building natural-gas pipelines often takes five years or longer. More transmission lines will likely be needed to connect the new capacity to the grid. These projects can take 5-15 years. The point is that the 2020 interim targets are simply not achievable.
Like many utilities, my company, Ameren, has spent years developing a plan that achieves substantial carbon reductions without straining the grid or needlessly raising rates. With millions of people in Missouri and Illinois relying on us for safe, reliable and reasonably priced energy, we have to find responsible, practical ways to transition to a cleaner and more diverse portfolio. Our 20-year plan involves adopting a mix of coal, nuclear, natural gas and renewables, while improving energy efficiency, and reaches the EPA goal only five years later than the current plan—and at a staggering cost savings of $4 billion for our Missouri customers, according to company estimates.
A few solutions would significantly reduce the reliability and cost risks of the EPA’s proposed plan. A critical first step is that the EPA must replace its aggressive interim targets with a process that allows states to set their own paths toward the final goals. Each state should be allowed to tailor its compliance plan to local circumstances, balancing unique factors such as cost, fuel diversity and environmental benefits. In exchange for this flexibility, enhanced interim reporting requirements would help the EPA monitor the progress while providing a more accurate idea of the work under way—and challenges involved—in achieving the targets.
Beyond that, two safeguards should be added to the plan. First, it should include a mechanism to deal with reliability issues before a state’s plan is implemented. Such a mechanism would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to examine the effects of state-submitted plans on regional reliability. If issues are identified, the state should be allowed to resubmit a revised plan and potentially adjust its targets to maintain reliability.
Second, the EPA should incorporate a reliability safety valve that would operate throughout the compliance period if unforeseen events—such as tornadoes destroying a wind farm or extreme cold weather—require coal plants to operate at unanticipated levels. Owners of these coal plants need assurance that they will never be penalized for keeping the lights on.
Neither fallback measure is a substitute for addressing the EPA’s interim targets. While the EPA’s desire to reduce carbon emissions is understandable, doing so should not jeopardize reliability or unnecessarily threaten the affordability of the national electricity supply. There are better ways to achieve much the same end, and the agency should pursue a more reasonable course on carbon policy.
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Court Narrows EPA's GHG Permit Rule But Leaves Door Open On Threshold
Apr 10, 2015 | InsideEPA
After a months-long delay, a federal appellate court has ruled to formally scale back EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) permit rule in accordance with a Supreme Court decision while issuing a formal mandate to uphold the agency's landmark vehicle GHG rules, endangerment finding and remaining permit requirements -- a long-expected formality.
In a per curiam order April 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected without comment industry arguments that the agency is barred from permitting GHGs until officials promulgate a new rule setting GHG emissions thresholds -- just as the high court suggested in its unanimous February 2014 ruling that narrowed the basis for EPA's climate permitting program.
But the D.C. Circuit appeared to leave the argument over the threshold open for further consideration as its judgment did not address a pending petition in a related case filed by Texas challenging EPA's imposition of a federal permit program -- an omission that continues uncertainty for the agency.
“There certainly is uncertainty until the court resolves this,” says one former government lawyer. “EPA is of the position that it can determine thresholds on a case-by-case basis. But if they can't do that, this could forbid issuance of [GHG] permits until EPA promulgates a threshold regulation and that will take time,” the lawyer says.
The D.C. Circuit has long been expected to issue mandates formally allowing EPA to implement its initial round of GHG rules, including its endangerment finding, vehicle GHG rules and permit requirements for new and modified stationary sources. The appellate court had ruled in June 2012 in an unsigned opinion in Coalition for Responsible Regulation, et al., v. EPA, et al., to uphold all four of the measures.
But in Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) v. EPA, the high court in 2014 narrowed the basis for EPA's GHG permit requirements, finding that EPA could only require best available control technology (BACT) reviews for GHGs at facilities that would be subject to prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) for their conventional pollutants regardless of their GHG emissions.
EPA had estimated that limiting the scope of the rule to these so-called “anyway” sources would scale back the universe of regulated facilities from 86 percent of all major sources to 83 percent.
While the high court blocked EPA from permitting facilities for their GHG emissions alone, the court also suggested that EPA should set a de minimus threshold for when GHG limits are needed in PSD permits -- but provided no other direction in its ruling.
The justices also did not speak directly to the fate of EPA's “tailoring” rule, which had raised statutory PSD permit thresholds to limit the number of facilities that would trigger PSD based on GHGs alone.
The UARG case went back to the D.C. Circuit and remained there despite the court's months-long consideration of competing motions -- filed last November -- from EPA, states and industry groups to govern future proceedings.
EPA and its allies asked the court to accept a limited path forward in addressing the remaining GHG permit issues in Nov. 21 briefs, while industry and other opponents of the agency's GHG rules sought a broad response, including a finding that EPA cannot enforce any GHG limit in PSD until the agency completes a rulemaking establishing a de minimus emissions threshold.
EPA Implementation
Despite the D.C. Circuit's failure to act, EPA has already taken steps to implement the high court's decision. Last summer, shortly after the high court ruled, EPA said in a memo that it would continue to enforce “step 1” of the tailoring rule -- which required only facilities that triggered PSD for criteria pollutants to undergo BACT analyses -- to also include GHG limits in their permits.
The agency also said it would retain a 75,000 ton per year (tpy) threshold for when GHG limits are triggered at the “anyway” sources.
But EPA said that it will leave it up to states to determine whether to continue to require permits for sources that trigger the requirements based solely on their GHG emissions -- which were regulated under “step 2.” Several states, including Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, have already revised their rules to limit their permit programs to “anyway” sources.
EPA has also said it plans to finalize by the end of the year a new rule for rescinding permits for sources that triggered the requirements due solely to their GHGs, while also vowing to limit enforcement against entities that are currently subject to such permits.
The court's new order appears to clear the way for much of the work the agency is already doing.
“This does EPA's work for it,” the former government lawyer says, noting that the court vacated those portions of the tailoring rule the Supreme Court deemed unlawful under UARG. “Those [remaining portions of the tailoring rule] are now in place and upheld to the extent they have been vacated [by the high court],” the lawyer adds.
But the lawyer cautions that despite the court's order, the agency's efforts still face uncertainty as Texas, Wyoming and several industry groups continue to argue as a litigation matter that the agency is not lawfully allowed to require consideration of GHGs until it sets a new permit threshold.
“Until EPA has amended those rules and states have submitted [state implementation plans (SIPs)] consistent with those rules, GHGs are not subject to regulation in any form under the [permit] program,” the groups charged in a Sept. 22 petition asking the D.C. Circuit to rehear State of Texas, et al. v. EPA in light of the UARG ruling.
In the Texas suit, the state and industry groups had challenged EPA's decision to preempt state authorities to permit GHGs after the states had refused to create their own permit programs. They argued that EPA should have allowed states three years to begin GHG permitting before imposing a federal implementation plan (FIP).
But the D.C. Circuit in July 2013 rejected the suit, finding that states and industry groups lacked standing to challenge the rules because by providing valid permits, the agency helped prevent a ban on major construction projects.
In the FIP challenge, states and industry groups say the appellate decision upholding the EPA FIPs must be reversed in light of the high court ruling in the GHG permit case, which circumvented the standing issue and held that PSD requirements “are not self-executing.”
“In light of the Supreme Court's opinion, a source cannot be subject to PSD requirements for its GHG emissions because the carbon dioxide equivalent thresholds in EPA's definition of 'subject to regulation' are invalid,” Texas' petition says.
Texas' Permitting
Although Texas is challenging the legality of EPA's permit program as a legal matter, the state recently assumed responsibility for implementing the program.
EPA last October approved Texas' request to issue GHG permits for large facilities, but the agency warned the state to strictly honor its commitments given its stance in the pending litigation.
“EPA's rescission of the majority of the FIP and its approval of the majority of the Texas GHG SIP are predicated on the understanding that the State of Texas will implement the [permit] program requirements for greenhouse gases in accordance with [regulators'] representations,” EPA said.
EPA in February completed its remaining GHG permit work in Texas, an effort that included the first-ever federal Clean Air Act permit that requires a modified stationary source to install carbon capture and sequestration technology.
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Week Ahead: Climate Rule Gets Its Day in Court
Apr 13, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration will go to court next week to defend its signature climate change regulation.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon limits for existing power plants, which were proposed last June, will be the subject of oral arguments Thursday at the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Murray Energy Corp. is suing to stop the rule before it is even made final, arguing that the Clean Air Act expressly prohibits such a regulation.
Thirteen states are also bringing their own lawsuit, challenging a court settlement the EPA entered that the states, led by West Virginia, say underpins the regulation.
Though it is highly unusual for a court to overturn a regulation before it is made final, the case nonetheless is an opportunity for the rule to be derailed before it takes effect.
House lawmakers will also focus on challenging the carbon limits, which aim to reduce the power sector’s carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Energy and Power subpanel will hold a Tuesday hearing on the Ratepayer Protection Act, sponsored by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), the panel’s chairman.
The bill would allow any state governor to reject a compliance plan under the regulation if it would hurt electricity prices, reliability or for a variety of other reasons.
The subcommittee will hear from the EPA’s clean air chief, Janet McCabe, along with six stakeholder representatives who oppose or support the rule.
Tuesday will be a busy day for hearings.
Apart from the hearing on the EPA rule, a subpanel of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will discuss ongoing rule-making concerning railroads, pipelines and hazardous materials.
A subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will discuss the crude oil export ban, and a subpanel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on its efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Across Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a subpanel of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hear from the inspectors general of the EPA and the Interior Department.
On the spending front, the House Appropriations Committee’s subpanel with authority over the Energy Department and water programs will meet to vote on its bill to fund those programs for fiscal 2016.
In the Senate, a subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee will hear from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on that agency’s budget request.
Off Capitol Hill, the BlueGreen Alliance, which represents the intersection of labor and environmental advocacy, is hosting its Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference Monday.
Vice President Biden will receive an award at the event and speak, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will deliver the keynote.
A coalition of water advocacy groups will host their National Water Policy Forum Monday through Wednesday, which will include a Monday speech by EPA head Gina McCarthy.
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EPA to Propose Renewables Standards By June 1, Issue Final Rule by Nov. 30
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency announced an aggressive schedule April 10 that would bring its lagging renewable fuel standard program back into compliance with the statutory deadlines (Am. Fuel & Petrochemical Mfrs v. EPA, D. D.C., No. 15-cv-00394, consent decree proposed, 4/10/15).
The schedule would see the EPA propose renewable fuel blending requirements for petroleum refiners for 2014, 2015 and 2016 as well as biomass-based diesel by June 1 and finalize all of those rules by Nov. 30. It is partially driven by a proposed consent decree that would resolve lawsuits brought by petroleum refiners challenging delays in the program.
“With these deadlines we'll be back on the statutory timeline. Our goal is to provide the market with the certainty it needs to grow,” Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality, told reporters April 10.
The proposed consent decree, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, would require the EPA to propose the 2015 renewable fuel standard volume requirements by June 1, with a final rule issued by Nov. 30. It also would require the EPA to address a waiver petition filed by the petroleum industry, which is seeking to reduce the renewable fuels blending requirements for 2014.
The proposed consent decree must still be approved by a federal judge following a 30 day public comment period.
Plans to Propose Blending Requirements
In addition to that proposed consent decree, the EPA announced plans to propose renewable fuel blending requirements for 2016 as well as biomass-based diesel standards for 2017 by those same deadlines. Additionally, the EPA will re-propose its blending mandates for 2014 to reflect the actual volumes of renewable fuels consumed that year as part of that package of rules.
The EPA still has not finalized its 2014 standards, which should have been completed by Nov. 30, 2013. Additionally, the EPA is overdue to issue its rule for 2015, which has not yet been proposed.
Though the EPA has struggled to issue the standards by the statutory deadlines in recent years, petroleum refiners said they were confident the agency would keep to the agreed-upon deadlines.
“I'm sure that they've done a fair amount of work toward putting that package together,” Rich Moskowitz, general counsel for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, told Bloomberg BNA April 10.
The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute sued the EPA in March over its failure to issue the 2014 and 2015 renewable fuel standard volume requirements by the statutory deadlines (53 DEN A-5, 3/19/15).
Reform Still Pushed
Petroleum refiners said the settlement would bring short-term relief, but the EPA's increasing delays in issuing the annual renewable fuel requirements demonstrate the need for Congress to repeal or reform the law.
“We hope this agreement helps get the RFS back on track, but the only long-term solution is for Congress to repeal the program and let consumers, not the federal government, choose the best fuel to put in their vehicles,” Stacy Linden, general counsel for the American Petroleum Institute, said in an April 10 statement.
Several bills have already been filed in Congress to revise the renewable fuel standard, with most targeting requirements that petroleum refiners blend corn-based ethanol into their fuels. Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced the Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act (S. 577), and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) introduced the RFS Reform Act (H.R. 704) to cap the amount of ethanol allowed in gasoline at 10 percent and eliminate the renewable fuel standards's corn ethanol blending mandate.
“This is a Band Aid to deal with a past problem,” Moskowitz said.
Fuels Producers Want Certainty
Bob Dinneen, president and chief executive officer of the Renewable Fuels Association, told Bloomberg BNA April 10 that 2014 and 2015 will likely be lost years for renewable fuels producers because the EPA delays mean its rules won't be driving consumption of ethanol and other biofuels in the marketplace. Instead, renewable fuels producers will be looking at the EPA's 2016 rule, which is not covered by the proposed consent decree, to provide the certainty needed to invest in the production capacity necessary to meet the statutory requirements. The law requires that petroleum refiners blend 22.25 billion gallons of renewable fuels into the fuel supply in 2016.
“They've got to reconcile a statute that is very clear with what they're supposed to do with an incumbent industry that says we can't blend it any more,” Dinneen said.
Grundler said the new schedule will allow the EPA to achieve the statutory deadlines for issuing the annual blending requirements once the agency addresses issues such as the ethanol “blend wall,” the point at which the amount of ethanol that must be blended into the fuel supply exceeds 10 percent, the maximum approved for use in all vehicles.
The EPA had proposed (RIN 2060–AR76) reducing the overall renewable fuel standard blending mandate below the statutory requirements for the first time in 2014. The agency had proposed that petroleum refiners and importers blend 15.21 billion gallons of renewable fuels into their products in 2014 (78 Fed. Reg. 71,732). That is less than the 18.15 billion gallons required by the Energy Independence and Security Act (Pub. L. No. 110-140) because the agency didn't believe the fuel sector could absorb any additional ethanol.
Grundler said resolving how the EPA will address that constraint will allow the agency to better meet its annual deadlines to issue the blending requirements. He said the growing availability of high ethanol gasoline blends such as E15 (gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol) and E85 (gasoline containing 85 percent ethanol) could be an option for increasing the amount of ethanol blended into fuels.
“Those are facts we can't ignore,” he said.
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EPA Says Plan For Multi-Year RFS May Spur 'Strategic' Fix For 'Blend Wall'
Apr 10, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's top transportation official says a consent decree committing the agency to issuing a multi-year renewable fuel standard (RFS) later this year will allow EPA to craft a “strategic” policy that could fix the long-running problem of the “blend wall” -- the saturation of ethanol in the fuel supply that has boosted calls to scrap or overhaul the RFS.
The agreement announced April 10 commits EPA to legally binding deadlines to issue proposed RFS targets for 2014 and 2015 by June 1, and final versions of the fuel production targets by Nov. 30. The agency is also voluntarily committing to issue target volumes for 2016 on the same timeline.
Christopher Grundler, director of EPA's Office of Transportation & Air Quality, said on a call with reporters that the multi-year package will not only get the RFS program “back on track,” it “allows us to be more strategic.”
One major issue that EPA may decide on its approach to is the ethanol saturation point, or “blend wall,” which is the point where no more ethanol can be blended into the nation's fuel supply. The RFS' annual fuel production target for renewable fuels is met in large part through the production of corn ethanol.
The blend wall occurs because most gasoline sold in the United States contains 10 percent ethanol (E10), even though EPA has approved sale of a higher 15 percent blend (E15). While the oil industry repeatedly refers to the blend wall as an obstacle to RFS implementation, ethanol advocacy groups say it is an artificial argument that results from the oil sector's reluctance to facilitate infrastructure to sell higher ethanol blends.
On the call, Grundler acknowledged the blend wall was reached in 2014, contributing to the difficulty of setting fuel volumes for that year. “The gasoline pool arrived at what we call the saturation point,” he said. “I think the facts are the facts. It is a fact that most gasoline today sold across the country contains 10 percent ethanol.”
Even if EPA is able to use the upcoming 2014-2016 RFS rulemakings to fix the blend wall problem, the agency's timeline for issuing the regulatory package -- which is the result of a proposed consent decree with refiners that filed deadline suits to force issuance of the rules -- has failed to quell calls to repeal or reform the RFS.
Stacy Linden, general counsel of the American Petroleum Institute (API) that filed the deadline litigation, said, “We hope this agreement helps get the RFS back on track, but the only long-term solution is for Congress to repeal the program and let consumers, not the federal government, choose the best fuel to put in their vehicles.”
At least one lawmaker who does not support repeal but does back calls to overhaul the RFS continued to advocate for reforming the program even while welcoming the settlement agreement deadlines.
“While I am in favor of reforming the RFS, I am pleased that the EPA has committed” to issuing the RFS targets, known as renewable volume obligations, “out on time. Industry -- biofuels, refiners, or cellulosic -- deserves certainty in the marketplace. The EPA has an obligation to meet the timelines set forth under law, but unfortunately that hasn’t happened in the last few years. I hope what’s been agreed to today gives all sides breathing room to operate until Congress can permanently solve the problem,” said Rep. Gene Green (D-TX).
Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) in contrast said that the RFS “still remains a consistently mismanaged program in need of full repeal. . . . The need for this settlement underscores that the free market should be managing our fuel supply, not the EPA.”
Some pro-ethanol groups welcomed the settlement agreement. Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis said, “Our producers have faced ambiguity for too long and today is welcome news that they are establishing a level of certainty with this announcement. However, far more important than timing is that that the EPA establishes a final rule that moves our industry forward, and reflects the bipartisan vision Congress intended for the RFS.”
RFS Targets
Under the program, EPA sets annual production goals for cellulosic, biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuels in a bid to boost use of fuels that lead to lower lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than conventional gasoline. The Clean Air Act requires issuance of the annual targets by Nov. 30 of the preceding year, but the blend wall and other factors have complicated EPA's work and led to repeated delays issuing the RFS.
API and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) earlier this year filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia saying the agency had violated the air law mandate for issuing the standards. They claimed that the groups' members are suffering economic injury as a result of EPA's failure to timely issue final RFS production targets. The delay hinders refiners' ability to plan for, and if necessary, adjust their operations to ensure compliance with the fuel blending goals depending on what final targets EPA might set, they said.
The proposed consent decree with API and AFPM -- which will be subject to a 30-day notice and comment period before EPA can ask the court to sign off on it -- aims to address the RFS volumes for 2014 through 2016.
The new deadlines and consent decree do not affect the content of the rules, but will require that by June 1 EPA re-propose RFS targets for 2014 to replace the proposed goals it previously scrapped, and propose targets for 2015 and 2016. The re-proposed 2014 targets will “reflect the volumes of renewable fuel that were actually used in 2014,” EPA says.
By Nov. 30, under the terms of the proposed settlement agreement, the agency would have to finalize the 2014, 2015 and 2016 fuel production goals.
EPA will also on the same June and November schedule this year propose and finalize RFS biomass-based diesel volume requirements for 2017 in order to provide fuel producers with greater “certainty.”
Asked on the call what would happen if EPA misses one of the new announced deadlines, including those covered by the proposed consent decree, Grundler said “missing a deadline is not an option.”
Grundler declined to directly answer questions about whether he would support a push in Congress to reform the RFS program. He did, however, note that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has previously noted that the one-year cycle for proposing and finalizing RFS volumes rules is tough to meet. Typically, EPA regulations take up to two years to promulgate, he said. Addressing several years' volume requirements at once should help, he said. In a press statement on the agreement, EPA reaffirms its commitment to the RFS, including as a measure to curb GHGs. “Biofuels are an important part of the President's energy strategy, helping to curb dependence on foreign oil, cut carbon pollution and drive innovation,” EPA says.
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EPA, Oil Groups Settle Lawsuit Over RFS Deadlines
Apr 10, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Peterka
In a tentative settlement with oil trade groups, U.S. EPA has agreed to a timeline to propose and finalize renewable fuel mandates this year.
Under the agreement, EPA would propose renewable fuel standard volumes for 2014 and 2015 by June 1 and finalize the standards by Nov. 30. The settlement would resolve the lawsuit filed by the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers last month over EPA's failure to issue standards for 2014 and beyond.
EPA also announced that, while not part of the consent decree, it would issue the 2016 RFS mandates on the same schedule.
"Taken together, the schedule is consistent with our commitment to get the program back on track," Christopher Grundler, director of EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, told reporters on a conference call. "All stakeholders want the RFS program back on the statutory timelines. With a final rule that establishes the 2016 standards by Nov. 30 of this year, we will be back on the statutory timeline."
Congress attached the renewable fuel standard to the Clean Air Act in 2007 as a means of increasing energy independence and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector. The standard established yearly requirements for refiners to blend conventional ethanol and advanced biofuels into petroleum fuel but gave EPA the authority to waive or reduce the levels.
By law, EPA is supposed to finalize the following year's mandates for conventional ethanol and most advanced biofuels by Nov. 30 of the previous year. The annual target for biodiesel -- an advanced biofuel made of soybean oil, used cooking grease and animal fats -- is supposed to be finalized 14 months before it goes into effect.
EPA has yet to issue standards, however, for 2014 or 2015. A proposal in late 2013 to scale back the RFS requirements for both conventional ethanol and advanced biofuel met strong opposition from several sectors, and the agency pulled back on it late last year.
API and AFPM filed their lawsuit on March 18 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charging that the ongoing delay has "harmed and continues to harm" refiners because they can't plan ahead to ensure compliance with the standards (Greenwire, March 20).
"EPA has failed year after year to implement the RFS effectively," API General Counsel Stacy Linden said in a statement today. "The agency still hasn't finalized the RFS requirements for this year or even last year, leaving companies to guess how much ethanol they were mandated to blend into gasoline."
Along with agreeing to set the volumes for 2014 and 2015, EPA agreed in the proposed settlement to formally respond to an August 2013 petition from API and AFPM to partially waive the 2014 mandate.
EPA also announced today that it would propose and finalize the RFS mandates for 2016, as well as the 2017 RFS requirement for biodiesel, on the same June and November timeline.
The timeline is consistent with public statements EPA officials have made over the past several months, Grundler said, adding that the agency has already been working on shaping a rule that would cover the three years.
"Missing a deadline is not an option," he said, "or to quote NASA, 'failure is not an option' for us."
In today's announcement, the agency gave some detail on how it would handle the requirements for 2014, given that the year has already come and gone. EPA said it would propose volumes for the year that reflect the amount of renewable fuel that was actually used. Grundler declined, however, to give further detail on how EPA would determine how much fuel was used in the marketplace.
Grundler added that the rule would set the tone for future years when it comes to tricky issues like the blend wall, the term for the 10 percent ethanol saturation limit in the market. Higher blends of ethanol have been slow to come into the market, which refiners say limits their ability to comply with the RFS.
"We will continue along that path for subsequent years," he said. "We're going to be resolving some of those fundamental issues, like how do we continue to grow volumes above this so-called blend wall."
The settlement is subject to a 30-day public comment period. According to the decree's language, EPA could miss the June and November deadlines only if there is written consent from all parties.
The oil trade groups said they were pleased with the terms of the settlement but reiterated broader concerns over the program. Both API and AFPM have called on Congress to repeal the standard on concerns about the blend wall.
"While we are pleased that we were able to negotiate a deadline that requires EPA to issue the overdue RFS rules, we remain concerned with the government's implementation of this broken program," AFPM General Counsel Rich Moskowitz said. "EPA's failure to comply with the statutory deadlines injures refiners and exacerbates the problems associated with this unreasonable government mandate."
Stephen Brown, vice president of federal government affairs at Tesoro Corp., said the settlement would force EPA to show its cards on the renewable fuel standard.
He expected committees in both the House and Senate to hold hearings on the RFS this summer after EPA releases its proposal, but said it would be unlikely for any RFS legislation to move before the agency issues its final rule.
"I think that this gets the ball rolling. We have got to force this out in the open," Brown said. "I don't think Congress can do much of anything right now. It doesn't have a point of entry to work on this issue until they see what the latest thinking is from the administration."
Several biofuel trade groups issued statements welcoming the establishment of court-ordered deadlines for EPA to issue the standards.
Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Ethanol Coalition, said the agreement was a "good signal" that would provide a "reasonable market expectation for resolving the uncertainty around the RFS."
"Now that we have a better idea of when it will happen," he said, "we look forward to working with EPA to make sure that the new RFS proposal supports the commercial deployment of advanced biofuels as called for by Congress."
Biofuel producers, however, said the substance of EPA's proposal would be more important to the industry than the timing of the rule. Biofuel groups said the agency's first attempt at the 2014 rule -- the proposal to scale back the mandates -- would have hurt the development of advanced biofuels and led to less competition in the fuel marketplace.
"Our producers have faced ambiguity for too long, and today is welcome news that they are establishing a level of certainty with this announcement," said Tom Buis, CEO of the ethanol group Growth Energy. "However, far more important than timing is that the EPA establishes a final rule that moves our industry forward and reflects the bipartisan vision Congress intended for the RFS."
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Superfund EPA Issues Financial Assurance Guidance For Superfund Site Settlement Agreements
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Matthew Berger
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued new internal guidance to assist its regional offices in ensuring financial assurance requirements are set forth in settlement agreements regarding Superfund sites.
The guidance, which seeks to better ensure that potentially responsible parties bear the financial burden for Superfund cleanups, includes revised sample language and documents for regional offices to use in settlement agreements and unilateral administrative orders relating to enforcement actions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
It comes as the agency has been emphasizing financial assurance as an enforcement priority in recent years and relies upon the agency's growing experience with financial assurance tools.
It is also the “first comprehensive document issued by EPA's Office of Site Remediation Enforcement to assist its regional offices with financial assurance issues and requirements at sites subject to enforcement actions under CERCLA,” an EPA spokesman told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail.
Increasingly Important Tool
Financial assurance rules are meant to ensure companies have enough money to pay for the cleanup of sites they may contaminate and to protect the agency—and its limited Superfund financial resources—from default or refusal to pay by potentially responsible parties.
They have been a priority at the EPA since at least 2009, when the agency identified several industries—hardrock mining, chemical manufacturing, coal-fired plants and petroleum and coal products manufacturing—as presenting the most risk of expensive releases and most deserving of having financial assurance requirements imposed on them (248 DEN A-4, 12/31/09).
At that point, the agency took the first steps toward a rule, under CERCLA's Section 108(b), that would require funds be available to cover risks from potential hazardous substance releases.
In August 2014, seven environmental groups sued the agency for not having put those requirements in place (In re: Idaho Conservation League, D.C. Cir., No. 14-1149; 155 DEN A-8, 8/12/14).
Guidance Separate From Rulemaking
The guidance issued April 9 is separate from that rulemaking process, as it only modifies the requirements regional offices set on Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) in settlement agreements and unilateral administrative orders, but it builds upon this experience with financial assurance requirements.
Financial assurance “has become an increasingly important part of EPA's Superfund enforcement program,” a memo announcing the new guidance said. “EPA has gained considerable experience on FA matters over time. Accordingly, the guidance is designed to build upon the extensive knowledge developed and to encapsulate lessons learned by Agency attorneys and FA specialists.”
The memo also noted that the new guidance and model documents are only intended to guide the ongoing work of agency employees. “They are not rules and do not create any legal obligation. The extent to which EPA applies them in a particular case will depend on the facts of the case,” it said.
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Apr 13, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Erica Martinson
On a sweltering day in July 1979, President Jimmy Carter flew to Kentucky with a message: The nation’s energy future rested on coal.
Not only was coal cheap and abundant, Carter made clear as he donned a hard hat to tour the Cane Run power plant near Louisville — it could also exist side by side with protecting the environment. Cane Run was ecologically state-of-the-art, one of the first plants in the country equipped to scrub acid rain-causing chemicals from its exhaust, making it “a testimony to the technological genius of Americans,” the president said. And for a nation traumatized by soaring energy prices, where more than a fifth of the power supply still came from burning oil, coal could help free the U.S. from its dangerous reliance on the Middle East.
“I would rather burn a ton of Kentucky coal,” Carter said later that day in a high school gym, “than to see our nation become dependent by buying another barrel of OPEC oil.”
But five presidents later, coal’s future is closing at Cane Run: Louisville Gas & Electric is shutting down the plant’s three coal-fired boilers next month, replacing them with natural gas.
It’s a scene playing out around the country, as dozens of coal-burning plants prepare to close amid a barrage from cheap natural gas, green opposition and President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations. The biggest Obama environmental rule to take effect so far — an EPA measure to curb power plants’ mercury pollution — kicks in on Thursday. An even bigger set of limits on greenhouse gases is due this summer.
When power companies plan for the future nowadays, it’s a future heavy on natural gas and wind, with solar energy running a distant third. Coal is almost entirely absent from the mix of new plants scheduled to open in the coming decade.
(CHART: America's changing power mix)
“Clearly the energy horizon has changed significantly,” said Louisville Gas & Electric retiree Chris Hermann, who was the young plant manager who led Carter’s tour 36 years ago. Back then, he said, the coal plant’s moment of White House limelight was “a big deal. … With the knowledge that we had and the place we were environmentally, we really thought this was leading edge.”
Coal power isn’t going away entirely — it’s still the No. 1 fuel for U.S. electricity and will remain a major source for decades to come. But its shrinking role is hard to miss.
Since 2012, when the EPA finished its mercury rule, at least 58 coal-burning power plants have partially or entirely shut down, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That has taken more than 16,000 megawatts of capacity offline, enough to power roughly 16 million homes.
That pace is set to accelerate in the next eight years, when another 76 plants are projected to take more than 28,000 megawatts of coal power out of commission — stretching from Somerset, Massachusetts, to the only commercial coal plant in Washington state. (The U.S. power supply from all sources is about 1 million megawatts.)
Since 2008, coal has dropped from providing nearly half of the U.S. power market to about 39 percent.
(MAP: America's coal-burning power plants)
Driving this trend: The Baby Boomer generation of coal-fired power plants built in the 1950s and ’60s is retiring, after decades of being excused from the most stringent pollution rules.
“Judgment Day is coming,” Bruce Nilles, who leads Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, said, adding that the mercury rule “has forced investment decisions at a bunch of old, very dirty coal plants. And a good number have decided it’s not worth investing in this old, dirty coal fleet.”
But it hasn’t been a smooth path, Nilles added. “Every rule EPA has issued, we had to sue them to issue,” he said.
Critics like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) denounce Obama’s regulations as a “War on Coal,” pointing to the thousands of jobs that have vanished as the coal industry wanes. Coal supporters and some regulators also warn that the loss of so many power plants could lead to blackouts during times of peak demand, although reliability regulations are supposed to keep that from happening and the amount of new gas and wind power being planned would more than equal what’s shutting down.
“Maybe EPA and others think that this country can prosper and succeed without a strong continuing coal role,” said National Mining Association President Hal Quinn. “That’s a real bet.”
In part, the fate of coal reflects changing presidential priorities: Carter wanted to see the end of oil-fired power plants, and by and large he got his wish. Last year, just 1 percent of U.S. electricity came from petroleum. Now, Obama’s big domestic priority is tackling climate change, so carbon-heavy coal power is on the chopping block.
But federal regulations aren’t the only reasons coal plants close, said Christine Todd Whitman, who was EPA administrator during President George W. Bush’s first term.
“You’ll find nine times out of 10 it is economics,” Whitman said. Then again, when a company announces a shutdown, it’s “better to say you’re closing down because the government made me do it.”
The industry is also feeling the effects of the fracking boom, which has flooded the market with inexpensive natural gas — a fossil fuel that also benefits from being less polluting than coal. Meanwhile, wind and solar power have become more competitive thanks to help from federal tax credits, although the wind credit expired last year.
“There is an enormous amount of change and innovation that is going on in the electric market,” said Paul Allen, senior vice president at the consulting firm MJ Bradley & Associates, who was a top environmental officer at Constellation Energy, a company heavy with natural gas and renewable power. He called it a “tectonic shift.”
Meanwhile, green groups like the Sierra Club have fought hard to hasten the shift. Those efforts got a big boost last week when former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he and other donors would contribute as much as $60 million to the Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign.
These trends reinforce each other: Increasingly strict air pollution rules make it more expensive to keep older coal plants running, lessening their competitive edge against gas, wind and solar. In turn, that helps environmentalists argue that the soundest economic strategy is to close the plants, not upgrade their pollution controls — especially with the EPA climate rules approaching.
That fight is “playing out literally in every public utility commission across the country… far outside the Beltway,” Nilles said. “Economic regulators are looking at the costs and saying, 'Why would we invest in more coal?’”
He added: “Five years ago, we were in the unenviable position of saying, ‘Do the right thing; it’ll cost more.’ That is no longer the case.”
The approach worked in eastern Kentucky, where American Electric Power decided in 2013 that it would shut down its coal-burning Big Sandy plant rather than spend $1 billion on an anti-pollution upgrade. It’s heading toward success now in Oklahoma, where greens are pushing utilities to backtrack on plans to upgrade older coal plants, and in Iowa, where the power companies were once 70 percent coal-fired, Nilles said. “We’ve managed to get almost 10 coal boilers in Iowa shut down, largely replaced with wind power,” he said.
In Coweta County, Ga., the soon-to-close Yates Power Plant has found a new role as a backdrop for post-apocalyptic Hollywood drama — scenes were shot there for “The Walking Dead” and one of the “Hunger Games” movies. It’s one of 15 plants that Georgia Power plans to shut down in response to the EPA regulations.
When the agency’s mercury rule takes effect Thursday, 600 power plants nationwide must meet the tight new standards or close their doors, with the exception of about 175 plants that have gotten an additional year to comply. Those that keep operating will have to capture 90 percent of their mercury pollution while reducing acid gases, sulfur dioxide and soot.
The rule effectively “makes permanent” the trend toward natural gas, the mining association’s Quinn said.
One hope for the coal industry may lie in the courts. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to the mercury rule last month, and the EPA climate rules are expected to draw a throng of lawsuits.
The coal plants that are shutting down tend to be older, smaller and used less often than most of their peers — in many cases, they were plants that power companies use to meet peak demands, such as on the hottest days of summer. For now, coal is still the nation’s leading source of utility power, providing 39 percent of the mix last year compared with 27 percent from natural gas. (Wind and solar combined provided less than 5 percent.)
The EPA’s analysis of the mercury rule calls it an economic big win, saying the utilities’ projected $9.6 billion in annual costs will be more than outweighed by $37 billion to $90 billion in yearly benefit like reduced deaths, illnesses and lost work days. But for now, jobs are a big casualty of the industry’s shift from coal.
The electric power generation industry lost 5,800 jobs from January 2011 to June 2014, even considering the creation of 1,800 new jobs in renewable energy, according to federal data. (Those numbers don’t include jobs in construction, transmission or distribution.) While many of those losses stemmed from coal plant shutdowns, and the fact that natural gas plants require fewer employees, the Energy Department says 4,000 of the lost jobs were in nuclear power, which has its own troubles.
While those trends play out, Louisville got another presidential visit this month. On April 2, Obama toured Indatus Solutions, a technology company he praised for its “hip and cool” vibe and its role in “helping to prepare people of all ages for the higher-paying, in-demand jobs of the future.”
“What’s happening here is essential to America,” Obama said. But he wasn’t talking about coal.
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Clinton Candidacy to Put Focus on Strength Of Environmental Record, Splits With Obama
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, has a strong record on protecting the environment and calling for action on climate change over more than two decades of public service. But she will have to take clearer positions on energy issues that she has avoided, more than a dozen environmental groups, energy industry lobbyists and other groups told Bloomberg BNA.
Environmental groups praised Clinton's work as secretary of state on international climate agreements and hailed her strong environmental voting record as U.S. senator from New York, though some called her positions on the Keystone XL pipeline, hydraulic fracturing and offshore oil and gas drilling troublesome.
Industry groups largely refrained from commenting on Clinton, although several said she would have to defend controversial Environmental Protection Agency regulations from President Barack Obama's administration and would be unable to effectively distance herself from his policy positions.
Clinton was expected to announce her candidacy for president April 12, according to Bloomberg News.
‘Just the Beginning.'
In her most recent environmental comments, made Dec. 1, 2014, at the League of Conservation Voters annual dinner, Clinton said the administration's proposed carbon dioxide standards for power plants “must be protected at all cost,” and she expressed optimism that a strong international agreement on climate change would be reached in Paris later this year. She called a fall 2014 international agreement with China to reduce carbon pollution, a revised national ozone standard and a $3 billion pledge from the U.S. to the Green Climate Fund “just the beginning of what's needed.”
“There's no getting around the fact that the kind of ambitious response required to effectively combat climate change is going to be a tough sell at home and around the world,” Clinton said. “Some additional warming is destined to occur over the course of this century, no matter what we do, but if we act decisively now we can still head off the most catastrophic consequences.”
In her remarks, Clinton also said natural gas could play an “important bridge role in the transition to a cleaner energy economy” with proper safeguards, and she called for smart regulation of methane emissions from oil and gas operations. That support for natural gas has riled some environmental advocates.
Environmental Groups Praise Record
Many environmental groups said Clinton had shown a strong record of environmental leadership throughout her time as secretary of state, from 2009 through 2013, and while senator from New York from 2001 through 2009.
“As Secretary of State and New York Senator, Sec. Clinton had a strong record of leadership in support of public health safeguards and climate pollution reductions,” Daniel J. Weiss of the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund told Bloomberg BNA. “Americans want their next president to drive investment in clean energy jobs, cut carbon pollution and work with other nations so they do so too. Everything about her past record and recent speeches indicates that she will continue to do so.”
Groups pointed Clinton's decision in 2012 for the U.S. to join a coalition to reduce short-lived climate pollutants such as methane, black carbon and hydrofluorocarbons as especially significant. That work has “laid the foundation” for future international agreements to curb HFCs, such as the one Obama announced with Chinese President Xi Jinping in June 2013.
They also point to her work during international climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009 where Clinton unveiled plans for a $100 billion-a-year Green Climate Fund funded by private and public sources to help developing nations adapt to the impacts of climate change. Clinton said the agreement in Copenhagen was “far from” what was needed, but environmental groups said her work has helped future negotiations.
“She laid a lot of groundwork for the international agreements that are coming to fruition right now,” Heather Taylor-Miesle, director of the NRDC Action Fund, told Bloomberg BNA. “She has given no indication she's going to back away from these issues.”
Others point to her campaign team as evidence of her ongoing commitment to climate change and environmental issues. John Podesta, for example, previously served as senior counselor to Obama on environmental issues and is expected to play a major role in Clinton's campaign as well.
Other Advocates Uneasy
Other environmental advocates expressed unease with some of Clinton's policy positions and her prior refusals to swear off fossil fuels. They noted helpful rhetoric on climate change, but said her stances on the Keystone XL pipeline, fracking and trade authority have led some to question her commitment to environmental matters.
“We're concerned for sure that Hillary Clinton is not going to make the environment a significant issue,” Benjamin Schreiber, head of the climate and energy program for Friends of the Earth, told Bloomberg BNA. “Our hope is we can continue to raise the profile of our climate crisis so all candidates have to address it.”
Of particular concern to some groups were comments made by Clinton in 2010 that she was “inclined” to approve the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. 350 Action, a group leading the charge against the proposed pipeline, intends to protest outside Clinton's campaign headquarters following her campaign launch to pressure her for a position on the project.
“A lot of people who care about climate change look at Hillary and want to know where she will land on it,” Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesman for the group, told Bloomberg BNA. “The bar is whether she'll stand up to Big Oil. We need to get specific. We can't just say nice things about green energy and then go home at the end of the day.”
‘Cut From Same Cloth' as Obama
Energy industry lobbyists and other political observers questioned whether Clinton would approach environmental issues any differently as president than Obama has, given that she served in his Cabinet. They also said she would have to address concerns about a number of high-profile EPA regulations, including the Clean Power Plan.
“On energy policy, Obama and Clinton are like two peas in a pod,” Chris Warren, spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, told Bloomberg BNA.
Clinton has been reluctant to address many of the regulations and other environmental actions of the Obama administration since leaving her job as secretary of state, but she should be prepared to address cost and reliability concerns about regulatory actions Obama took, according to industry observers.
“Whether Clinton likes it or not, the Clean Power Plan is going to be front and center in her campaign,” Brian Potts, an attorney with Foley & Lardner LLP, told Bloomberg BNA. “She's going to have to decide quickly whether she wants to back all of the plan or just portions of it.”
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal advocacy group, sees some reason for optimism that Clinton could be more pragmatic about coal internationally because she has previously acknowledged coal is critical to ending energy poverty.
“[Clinton] may lend herself to being more open-minded than Obama when it comes to accepting the economic benefits coal-fired generation provides, as well as its ability to enhance and better the way of life for billions across the globe,” Laura Sheehan, a spokeswoman for the group, told Bloomberg BNA. “But at this stage of the game, that is a huge ‘may.’ ”
Several other large industry groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, declined to comment.
Strong Environmental Record in Senate
Clinton unveiled a broad energy and climate plan as part of her 2008 presidential campaign with three main goals: reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050, cut foreign oil imports by two-thirds from projected levels by 2030 and create at least 5 million jobs from clean energy over the next decade.
Components of the plan would have been a cap-and-trade program that auctions 100 percent of permits, a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to finance investments in alternative energy, doubling of federal funding for energy research and concerted action toward the goal of having renewables generate 25 percent of electricity by 2030.
During her time in the Senate, Clinton advocated for clean air and stronger environmental protections. She also focused on issues specific to New York, such as Superfund and brownfields cleanups. In August 2008, shortly before the presidential election, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee advanced legislation sponsored by Clinton that would have established an interagency task force to examine environmental justice issues.
Clinton backed all three major Senate floor votes on proposals to impose mandatory caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2003, 2005 and in 2008.
She supported in 2005 an amendment from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to broaden energy legislation that would have required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010. Clinton also backed, in 2003, the Climate Stewardship Act, which would have required electric utilities, manufacturers and other economic sectors to cut back greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010.
Clinton did not vote on the 2008 legislation due to the presidential campaign cycle, but sent a letter indicating she would have supported it.
How big a role the former secretary of state, senator and first lady's views on climate change and the environment play in her campaign remains to be seen, multiple observers told Bloomberg BNA.
“I'm not sure where it is on her list of her priorities, but the environmental movement is going to try to put it on top of her agenda,” Jim Manley, a former senior aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), told Bloomberg BNA. “She's not going to have much of a chance to distance herself from the president and his policies. As always, you can find areas to try and differentiate yourself, but in this case I don't see much daylight.”
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Forum Discusses Potential Impacts Of Military's Energy Initiatives
Apr 10, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Ariel Wittenberg
Legal experts and military officials today discussed key issues in keeping military and environmental objectives balanced and in step with the Department of Defense's energy initiatives.
Speaking at the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review Conference, Sarah Light of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School said the military's immense purchasing power, coupled with its energy initiatives, could create a "military environmental complex" that might prompt a broader market for renewable energy.
"There is a potential for the military to serve as a trusted source for those who may not otherwise support clean energy and conservation," said Light, speaking about a law review article she published last year.
Light's theory is a riff on a term coined by President Eisenhower during his farewell address in 1961. Then, he warned Americans of a "military industrial complex" in which the military's partnership with contractors and industry would have "unwarranted influence" on national politics and policy, potentially leading to unnecessary wars and spending.
By contrast, Light's "military environmental complex" is the theory that the Defense Department's relatively newfound emphasis on energy efficiency as a means of attaining its national security goals could spur broader growth in the renewable energy sector.
"Cooperation among the military, private financiers and technology firms has the potential to transform for the better not only our nation's energy profile, but also the military industrial complex," she said.
Light used the military's use of power purchase agreements with renewable energy providers as an example of how the Defense Department's $19 billion energy budget could be used to influence the market. She did not put the Navy's biofuels initiative in the same category, instead questioning whether using biofuels would actually lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Light noted some concerns with the military's environmental standing by pointing out that the Defense Department is sometimes exempt from national environmental standards for reasons of national security and warning that Pentagon energy contracts could be just as vulnerable to graft as any other government contract.
Light's theory divided current and formal Defense officials sitting on a review panel at the conference.
Sharon Burke, assistant secretary of Defense for operational energy, said Light's theory was interesting when it came to "how the Department of Defense runs the business of war," adding, "It's true that there is a ring of Saturn around the Pentagon of contractors and lobbyists" who see the Defense Department as a valuable customer.
But Burke noted that the Defense Department's "wonderful" energy initiatives are all to serve its core mission of protecting national security. And that goal is often not pretty for the planet.
"The heart of the Defense mission is to make war, and war is not environmentally friendly ever," she said while displaying slides of war-torn places like Hiroshima and Appomattox on a projector screen. "It takes a lot of resources to have a war, and war destroys everything in its path. Don't fool yourself, don't ever let yourself forget the mission."
Meanwhile, Amanda Simpson, executive director of the Army Office of Energy Initiatives, said Light's theory did not go far enough to illustrate the importance of the Army's environmental initiatives.
She said the military has rarely used a national security exemption to environmental regulations and noted that the Army is responsible for nearly 14 million acres of land, including 1,600 environmental cleanup sites.
Simpson noted that a significant portion of casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars happened to fuel resupply convoys, and she characterized "resource efficiency" as a critical part of the Army's defense mission.
"We don't see the military and the environment in competition," she said. "The world's ultimate weapon, our soldiers, run on water. Everything else runs on fuel."
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Officials to Face Scrutiny for Agency Rules on Railroad Tank Cars
Apr 13, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sean Reilly
No one's predicting a train wreck, but a trio of federal transportation officials could face some aggressive questioning tomorrow about proposed standards for strengthening safeguards for oil-carrying railroad tank cars.
The hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials will also cover an array of Department of Transportation rulemakings in other areas, according to a staff briefing paper released Friday. But lawmakers' interest in the crude-by-rail regulations has intensified following several fiery oil train accidents in Canada and the United Sates, such as last month's derailment in northwest Illinois.
Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the top Democrat on the full T&I Committee, has already sought an independent review of federal regulators' ability to ensure safe handling of oil and other hazardous materials. The railroads subcommittee's chairman, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), has taken a more conciliatory stance. "I just want to make sure that we're all singing the same tune: that we have a very safe industry and we're working together on improving that industry," Denham said in February.
After publishing a draft version of the tank car regulations last July, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) now predicts that the final rule will be out May 12. Also involved is the Federal Railroad Administration; in the draft regulations, the two agencies proposed outfitting all new tank cars with reinforcing jackets, thermal protection and heat shields and then offered three options for public comment.
Whatever the final standards turn out to be, they would apply to cars being built to succeed the puncture-prone DOT-111 models implicated in the July 2013 oil train explosion that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Worry is growing, however, that even stricter rules could be needed as newer CPC-1232 cars have also shown themselves vulnerable to accidents.
The Federal Railroad Administration saw "no need" to crash-test those cars, the agency told Congress last year on behalf of then-Administrator Joseph Szabo. As a rationale for that decision, the railroad administration said it had gotten enough data from puncture tests of two similar tank car models to extrapolate the results to the CPC-1232. Two months ago, however, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart wrote that the forthcoming standards "could be weakened by a vast new fleet of cars built to older and less-safe standards." Hart is scheduled to testify at tomorrow's hearing.
Also on the agenda are changes to hazardous materials transportation rules required by MAP-21, the 2012 highway and transit law. Of 24 such changes mandated by MAP-21, short for Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, 11 are complete, nine are late, and four are ongoing, according to the staff briefing. Under another 2012 law, PHMSA is similarly under pressure to wrap up work on rulemakings on pipeline safety standards.
Schedule: The hearing is Tuesday, April 14, at 10 a.m. in 2167 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Sarah Feinberg, acting administrator, Federal Railroad Administration; Timothy Butters, acting administrator, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration; and Christopher Hart, chairman, National Transportation Safety Board.
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Railroad Chief at a Crossroads
Apr 11, 2015 | Politico
By Heather Caygle
A series of explosive oil train derailments and deadly commuter railroad crashes is putting the Federal Railroad Administration in the kind of political spotlight it hasn’t seen for years — caught between the powerful industry it oversees and congressional critics who have lambasted the agency as arrogant, aloof and slow to regulate.
And at this crucial moment, the nation’s top railroad safety regulator is a former Facebook executive and White House adviser whose resume is long on communications and policy posts — and notably short on railroad expertise.
Sarah Feinberg, whose most relevant experience is nearly a year and a half as chief of staff to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, has been acting chief of the FRA for about three months. But she seems destined to stay longer, given the Senate’s slowness to confirm executive branch nominees. She may even get President Barack Obama’s nod to take on the job permanently.
But whether she’s up to the task is an open question.
While her communications skills have won her positive reviews, both from the industry she oversees and some of her agency’s harshest critics in Congress, she’s already found herself in the middle of a war of words between the railroads and the petroleum industry about how to lessen the risk of oil train disasters. And like other political appointees serving as agencies’ acting chiefs, she’ll face scrutiny on both her knowledge of the industry she regulates and her willingness to be aggressive in taking it on.
“She may be a great public relations person,” said Harvey Levine, a transportation economist and safety advocate who was a vice president of the Association of American Railroads, the industry’s main lobbying group. “But does she have the maturity and the confidence and the wherewithal to ask the hard questions?”
Foxx insists the answer is yes.
“It’s definitely an agency where I would like to see some fresh eyes and fresh perspective, and she’s bringing that,” the secretary said, adding that Feinberg embraced the need to take on oil train rules and other railroad issues during her tenure as DOT’s chief of staff.
“She has my complete confidence,” he added.
Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said the broader issue is that five out of nine Transportation Department agencies, including the FRA, are being overseen by temporary leaders who haven’t had to face Senate confirmation.
“We have only gotten one nomination for any of those positions … so we can’t even begin the confirmation process for the rest of these important safety agencies,” Thune told Foxx during a March hearing. “I just want to convey to you the importance of getting those up here.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who blasted the FRA last fall as a “rogue agency” that is “much too captive to the industry,” agreed that the railroad agency needs more than an acting leader. “One of the problems with this agency is there is often the appearance, if not reality, of excessive coziness to the industry,” he said. “There’s a need for new leadership and a permanent appointee, not just a temporary placeholder.”
Then again, Blumenthal has become one of Feinberg’s loudest advocates. “She has been far more transparent and vigorous in overseeing an agency with very profoundly important responsibilities for rail safety and reliability,” he said.
Feinberg, 37, declined to discuss her tenure at FRA, but she’s long been a known quantity in Washington: She spent years working for Rahm Emanuel, including as the communications director of the House Democratic Caucus and then as a senior White House adviser when Emanuel was Obama’s chief of staff. She’s also been one-half of a Washington power couple with her 2006 marriage to former White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer, though they later separated.
Her fans in Congress say that whatever she lacks in railroad background, she’s outperforming her predecessor — industry veteran Joe Szabo — in key areas, such as keeping them in the loop.
Feinberg “knows what she’s doing, she’s on top of it and she was quicker to respond than anybody I’ve worked with as a U.S. senator,” said Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who like Feinberg hails from West Virginia.
Similarly, top House Transportation Committee Democrat Peter DeFazio has slammed DOT’s handling of oil train safety but praises Feinberg’s knowledge of the issue. “She knew more about some technical things that I’m concerned about than I did,” DeFazio said after meeting with her. “I would say she is a rare combination of substance and political background.”
She’s also gotten the backing of the Association of American Railroads. Feinberg was “firm but fair” when working with the rail industry as Foxx’s chief of staff, AAR President Ed Hamberger said, adding that she was “integral” to fostering a 2014 agreement between DOT and the industry on voluntary measures to prevent derailments.
“Based on this demonstration of hands-on leadership, I believe Ms. Feinberg is certainly qualified to lead the FRA,” he said.
Safety advocates have also praised her initiatives to prevent accidents at railroad crossings. But they say they’re waiting to see how Feinberg performs before rendering an overall verdict.“It’s not necessary that the head of the agency be a subject matter expert,” said Jim Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which has recommended a series of railroad-safety recommendations over the years that the FRA has failed to adopt. He added: “Her experience is not as important as her commitment. And time will tell what her commitment to safety will be.”
Feinberg has already ordered an audit of potential steps to curb accidents at railroad crossings, following several recent collisions, and has pivoted the agency toward more transparency in its accident investigations, following the NTSB’s lead.
Manchin saw Feinberg in action in February after a 109-tanker oil train derailed and exploded in the state, destroying a house and forcing about 1,000 people to evacuate. She headed to the scene and briefed Manchin and other lawmakers.
Two weeks earlier, she’d rushed to Valhalla, N.Y., after a rush-hour commuter train collision with an SUV killed the car’s driver and five train passengers. Within an hour of learning of the accident, Feinberg was on the phone with Sen. Chuck Schumer, filling in the New York Democrat on preliminary details.
Her brief tenure has also been marked by flurry of other rail accidents, including a deadly train-truck collision last month in Oxnard, Calif., an oil train derailment in Illinois and an Amtrak crash with a tractor-trailer in North Carolina that injured dozens of people in early March. Even before Feinberg took over, railroad fatalities have been on an upswing of late: Last year’s preliminary total of 818 deaths was 21 percent higher than just three years ago, partly reversing a sharp decline since the early 1990s, according to FRA statistics.
Meanwhile, the huge growth of crude-by-rail has brought increasing worries about the safety of the flammable cargo rolling though U.S. cities and towns, especially after a July 2013 derailment killed 47 people in the small town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. That disaster has been followed by non-fatal — but still dramatic — derailments and fires in states like Alabama, North Dakota and Virginia.
DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration, which is working with the FRA on the issue, is preparing to issue regulations that aim to lessen those dangers, in part by requiring sturdier, more puncture-proof tank cars to carry crude oil. Feinberg began shepherding those regulations as Foxx’s chief of staff in the fall of 2013.
The FRA is also charged with overseeing railroads’ implementation of a complicated anti-collision system by the end of the year. Major freight railroads have been warning for years that they won’t meet the deadline, and some lawmakers have proposed giving the railroads more time.Not everyone’s a Feinberg fan — including oil industry groups that have sparred with DOT and the railroads over arguments that oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region is more explosion-prone than other types of crude oil. Bakken oil has been the cargo in the most notorious oil train accidents of the past few years, including the mass fatality in Quebec, prompting safety groups to call for mandatory measures to stabilize the fuel before shipment. But some oil groups argue that DOT should focus more on the causes of derailments, such as poor track maintenance.
Two oil industry groups criticized Feinberg after she told reporters that energy companies need to step up their game on the issue now that railroads “have gone above and beyond.” Feinberg said that while everyone can do more to improve safety, “we are getting to a point where I think we’re running out of things that we can put on the railroads to do, and there have to be other industries that have skin in the game.”
Calling Feinberg out by name, the American Petroleum Institute accused her of saying that “nothing more can be done to prevent derailments” — though she never actually said those words. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers president complained to Foxx that Feinberg’s comments “show a fundamental misunderstanding of the root cause of rail accidents.”
Feinberg also hit a bump on the increasing rash of accidents at highway-rail crossings, after she told The Washington Post that the accidents stem from driver or pedestrian error nearly 95 percent of the time. Safety advocates interviewed by POLITICO have questioned that statistic, saying it sounds like a railroad industry talking point.
“I doubt that [she] has enough experience to make any comment on safety at the moment,” said Hall, the former NTSB chairman.
FRA spokesman Kevin Thompson said the agency stands by the statistic that “94 percent of train-vehicle collisions can be attributed to driver behavior, including confusion, disorientation, attempts to ‘beat the train’ etc.” But Levine, the former AAR vice president, noted that the agency’s data rely on reports filed by the railroads, which he says have little incentive to admit fault in accidents.
“When she comes out with that statement, what it tells me is she bought the railroad line and that gets me nervous,” Levine said. “We need somebody in there asking where that number comes from. Trust and verify.”
The FRA rejected that argument, saying it has seen little evidence of railroads providing “false or erroneous information.”
Before she joined DOT, Feinberg’s experience included stints working for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the House Democratic Caucus and serving as senior adviser to Emanuel. After leaving the White House, she jumped to the private sector, taking communications gigs at Bloomberg and Facebook. (In an old POLITICO profile, she called her resume a “bit schizophrenic.”)
People who head DOT sub-agencies typically have at least some experience in the field — but not always. For instance, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta had prior stints at Xerox and a computer services company, as well as leadership jobs at two large ports, but his aviation resume was thin before he joined the agency. Huerta was a deputy FAA administrator for about three years before he became administrator in 2013 following predecessor Randy Babbitt’s drunken driving arrest and resignation.
Observers have said Feinberg’s relationship with Congress is very different than the one lawmakers had with Szabo, who had spent part of his career as a railroad conductor in Chicago and had several high-profile jobs in organized labor. “There was an inherent suspicion with Szabo from the beginning,” one long-time lobbyist said, noting Szabo’s background representing railroad union workers.
Critics described the agency under Szabo’s leadership as “arrogant” and opaque, not to mention lacking in the type of congressional charm offensive that Feinberg is waging. Last year, for example, House railroads subcommittee Chairman Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) publicly sparred with Szabo after the FRA chief skipped a hearing that the panel had rescheduled to accommodate Szabo’s schedule. “I would expect a phone call, not a press release,” Denham groused later.
In a meeting with Denham earlier this year, Feinberg assured him that communication between the agency and lawmakers would be much better. Denham has since been quiet about his thoughts on Feinberg, and many Republican lawmakers have deferred commenting on her until or unless Obama nominates her for the FRA post.
One rail lobbyist mused that the crickets on the GOP side could largely involve reluctance to jeopardize the pending oil-train regulations.
“They’re not going to touch this woman right now because everybody wants the crude oil rules out. Furthermore, they know she’s close to the secretary and the administration, so until they have reason to take her on, they’re not going to do that,” the lobbyist said. “But things can change. I’ve found in this town, things can change in a New York minute. All you have to do is put your foot in your mouth once.”
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FHWA Publishes Guide to Help Agencies Meet Environmental Justice Requirements
Apr 13, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amy Phillips
A comprehensive “reference guide” to help transportation practitioners comply with environmental justice requirements has been published by the Federal Highway Administration.
The guide, posted on the agency's website April 10, describes techniques for environmental justice data collection and analyses and strategies for incorporating environmental justice principles in all phases of project development: planning, environmental review, design, right-of-way, construction and maintenance and operations.
It also addresses public involvement, safety and consultations with the governments of federally recognized tribes. In addition, the guide discusses environmental justice aspects of other FHWA initiatives, such as livability, health in transportation and the Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program.
According to the guide, environmental justice at FHWA means “identifying and addressing disproportionately high and adverse effects of the agency's programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations to achieve an equitable distribution of benefits and burdens. This also includes the full and fair participation by all potentially affected communities in the transportation decisionmaking process.”
The guide outlines requirements in Executive Order 12898, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Environmental Justice Order 5610.2(a) and the FHWA's Environmental Justice Order 6640.23A. The agency stressed that the guide doesn't establish any new requirements or replace any existing guidance.
While intended as a resource for FHWA staff, the guide said it's most relevant for state and local agencies that receive FHWA funds and that conduct environmental justice analyses.
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