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(ACC Mentioned) Panel Sends TSCA Bill to Senate Floor
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Lawmakers on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today cleared a compromise bill that would change how the federal government regulates toxic chemicals. -
EPA Endocrine Managers Prepare New Policy To Outline Shift To New Tests
Apr 27, 2015 | InsideEPA - Risk Policy Report
By Maria Hegstad
Leaders of EPA's long-struggling Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) are drafting a policy document that will outline the agency's new, in vitro approach to the program, using these new methods to prioritize chemicals for screening in EDSP and eventually, replacing some of the animal-based assays with the newer cellular methods. -
Toxicologists Question 'No Harm' Standard In Boxer's TSCA Reform Bill
Apr 27, 2015 | InsideEPA - Risk Policy Report
By Maria Hegstad
The Society of Toxicology (SOT) is raising concerns with Senate and House efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), suggesting in recent letters to lawmakers that the safety standard in a bill sponsored by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer (CA) and Ed Markey (MA) is scientifically impossible to meet and questioning the use of the term "injury" in a recent draft House bill's safety standard. -
Senate Panel Approves Toxic Chemical Safety Bill
Apr 28, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A Senate committee passed a bill Tuesday that would reform the federal government’s regulation of toxic chemicals for the first time in decades. -
Senate EPW Easily Approves TSCA Compromise
Apr 28, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee easily approved a bipartisan plan this morning to overhaul federal oversight of dangerous chemicals, a day after Sens. Tom Udall and David Vitter cemented a deal with liberals that should give the bill a strong chance of getting through the full Senate. -
New TSCA Draft From Udall, Vitter Lures More Liberal Support
Apr 28, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Goode
Sens. Tom Udall and David Vitter have picked up some crucial liberal backing for their latest attempt to retool the government’s oversight of dangerous chemicals, a move that could further isolate Sen. Barbara Boxer’s last-ditch efforts to derail the bipartisan legislation. -
US Industry Executives Told TSCA Reform Prospects Are Good
Apr 28, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Prospects are good for the passage of the two bipartisan bills to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in the Senate and House. -
Progress, Not Breakthrough, in Senate Reform Fight; Most Important Work Lies Ahead
Apr 28, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Andy Igrejas
Last night Senators Merkley (D-OR), Whitehouse (D-RI), and Booker (D-NJ) announced they were joining Senators Udall and Vitter in a new version of the controversial Senate chemical reform bill. -
On Workers' Memorial Day 2015, An Appeal to Control Toxic Substances
Apr 28, 2015 | The Center for Public Integrity
By Jim Morris
Each year in advance of Workers’ Memorial Day — April 28 — a group in Philadelphia tries to tally every job-related death that occurred in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware the previous year. -
Groups Urge Protection From Toxics on Workers' Memorial Day
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
April 28 is Workers' Memorial Day, which labor and occupational safety groups say should be seen as a call to action for greater safety reforms for employees. -
Watchdogs: "More Harm than Good" in Toxic Substances Update
Apr 28, 2015 | Public News Service
By Mike Clifford
Backers say it will provide a long-needed update to the Toxic Substances Control Act, but local consumer advocates say a measure pending in the U.S. Senate could result in less protection for consumers. -
Toxic Chemical Bill: Is the Devil in the Details?
Apr 28, 2015 | Public News Service
By Mary Kuhlman
The U.S. Senate is considering an update of the nearly 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act, which regulates the use of chemicals in consumer products. -
Sidley Austin's Martella Talks 'Toxic Confusion' Over Senate's TSCA Reform Bill
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - TV
With the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee set to mark up a chemical safety reform bill today, what is the future of the legislation and potential for final passage? -
Lautenberg Legacy Bill Wins Bipartisan Support in Senate Committee
Apr 28, 2015 | NorthJersey.com
By Herb Jackson
A bill named in honor of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg that overhauls a widely criticized law governing what chemicals can be used in consumer products won bipartisan support in a Senate committee Tuesday. -
5 Steps to Safer Chemicals in Products
Apr 28, 2015 | Environmental Leader
Consumers want safer chemicals and ingredients in their products, and they want companies to be transparent about what’s in their products. -
California Consults on Regulatory Changes to Prop 65 Listing
Apr 28, 2015 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is seeking comments on additional changes it has made to its proposed Proposition 65 chemical listing by the Labor Code Regulation. -
(ACC Mentioned) Energy Department Approves Six LNG Export Plants, More Coming
Apr 28, 2015 | The New American
By Bob Adelmann
On April 14, the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionpublished a remarkable summary of its recent approvals for private energy companies to build LNG (liquid natural gas) export plants along the East and Gulf Coasts. -
Bills Addressing Earthquakes, Methane Pass Calif. Assembly Committee
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Debra Kahn
California lawmakers approved bills yesterday dealing with hydraulic fracturing's effect on seismic activity and methane emissions. -
API Wants in on Offshore Fracking Lawsuit
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The oil and gas industry's biggest trade group is again jumping into a lawsuit that challenges oil and gas drilling off the coast of California. -
Murkowski Opens Door to Obama Energy Plan
Apr 28, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Tuesday said she is open to an Obama administration plan for energy infrastructure and suggested officials should work with lawmakers on drafting legislation. -
Research Cautions States Against Shortsighted Plans for EPA Carbon Rule
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Emily Holden
States implementing U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan run the risk of writing plans that limit short-term costs and impacts on the coal industry but make carbon reductions more difficult down the line, according to a new study. -
EPA Launches Rulemakings To Craft ESPS FIP, Rescind GHG Permits
Apr 28, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has formally launched a suite of new rulemakings to implement and refine its greenhouse gas (GHG) regulatory programs, including a new measure to create a closely watched federal program governing GHG emissions at existing power plants and another to rescind GHG permits that the Supreme Court effectively held are unlawful. -
House Panel Floats Efficiency, SPR Language for Comprehensive Bill
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nick Juliano
The House Energy and Commerce Committee released two new legislative drafts today on emergency oil stockpiles and energy efficiency, the next pieces of a comprehensive energy bill being assembled by committee leaders.
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(ACC Mentioned) Panel Sends TSCA Bill to Senate Floor
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Lawmakers on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today cleared a compromise bill that would change how the federal government regulates toxic chemicals.
Lawmakers approved S. 697 on a 15-5 vote this morning, with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) joining Republicans in support of the measure.
Today's approval marks only the second time legislation to update the Toxic Substances Control Act passed a Senate committee since the original law was enacted in 1976. Last year, Senate Democrats passed a toxic chemicals bill when they controlled the chamber, but that measure was not taken up on the Senate floor.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Senate leaders had not yet decided when to bring the bill to the floor.
EPW ranking member Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who has led a campaign against the bill that was negotiated between Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.), took credit for pushing hard for changes to the bill. Udall, Vitter, Merkley, Whitehouse and Booker yesterday rolled out a manager's amendment, which won the support of additional Democrats (E&E Daily, April 28).
Udall is not a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, so he did not vote during this morning's markup.
Boxer credited her opposition for making the bill more protective than it initially was but declined to offer her support without additional amendments. She said the bill was improved but there were still too many conditions that could be used by industry to stall action on harmful chemicals.
"We got rid of a horrible bill -- it's gone. We have a bill that makes progress, and we will continue to work on it until it really protects the people," Boxer said.
Whitehouse said the negotiations had eliminated what he earlier called a "death zone" -- a period in which states could not ban a chemical that was identified by U.S. EPA but was not yet the subject of a final agency action.
If that's true, "it's very reassuring to hear you say that you think it's gone," Boxer said. "I think that will be the subject of great debate going forward."
Boxer vowed to fight the plan on the Senate floor by offering dozens of amendments. This morning, she offered three amendments, which were voted down by the committee. Boxer said she had 24 other amendments ready to go but told committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) she didn't offer the rest because "I just didn't want to ruin your morning completely."
Republicans voted down the Democratic proposals on largely party-line votes. The amendments included allowing expedited action on asbestos, closing a gap preventing state action before EPA has reached a final regulatory decision and tightening deadlines for the agency to take action.
As Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization President Linda Reinstein stood holding a picture of her late husband, who died of mesothelioma, Boxer said she was convinced the bill would not make it easy enough to ban the cancer-causing mineral.
But singling out asbestos for expedited action was "not an appropriate regulatory framework to set out," Vitter said.
Senate Democrats won the support of West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) for an amendment to allow EPA to consider the threat a chemical poses to drinking water supplies, a key issue in her state after a chemical fouled the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people last year. But the amendment failed to advance when all other Republicans on the panel opposed it.
The committee also voted down an amendment to allow EPA to consider the findings of international health bodies and other federal agencies, but the latest changes from Udall and Vitter would let the agency consider these kinds of recommendations when evaluating persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals.
More liberal members of the panel said Republicans were being hypocritical by tying the hands of states when they favor the broader principle of a less-intrusive federal government.
"I find it awkward to be speaking here in the position of being the most conservative member of this committee," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said.
Vitter countered it was appropriate for conservatives to favor this type of regulation.
"It's a very conservative principle," Vitter said, "because it's in the Constitution that things that are fundamentally about interstate commerce can be governed at the federal level."Reactions
American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley said in a statement the committee action was a positive step forward for the nation's chemicals policy.
The industry group "has always believed that compromise would be the key to successful TSCA reform, and the proposed manager's amendment reflects a carefully balanced approach that incorporates interests of several Democratic Senators and maintains important priorities for manufacturers," Dooley said in a statement. "We look forward to continued progress at today's markup and in the weeks to come."
Other industry groups also applauded the bill's passage. But despite the negotiated changes, no chemical safety groups that opposed the legislation have changed their positions.
The latest proposal "falls far short of what's necessary to ensure that chemicals are safe," Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said in a statement.
In a blog post, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Director Andy Igrejas said that the changes were encouraging but had to be put in perspective.
"The original bill was so bad that many of us have been grading it on a curve," Igrejas wrote.
The more limited changes under consideration by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and others in the House Energy and Commerce Committee may provide "a more straightforward approach" to updating the law, Igrejas wrote.
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EPA Endocrine Managers Prepare New Policy To Outline Shift To New Tests
Apr 27, 2015 | InsideEPA - Risk Policy Report
By Maria Hegstad
Leaders of EPA's long-struggling Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) are drafting a policy document that will outline the agency's new, in vitro approach to the program, using these new methods to prioritize chemicals for screening in EDSP and eventually, replacing some of the animal-based assays with the newer cellular methods.
"We're going through a process we call the pivot. We're pivoting from traditional toxicology methods to" newer high-throughput cellular toxicity testing methods, Bill Wooge, with the EDSP program, told members of the agency's state pesticide and agriculture officials advisory committee at a meeting in Arlington, VA, April 14. "We're working on a policy document that will explain this pivot . . . and impacts it will have."
Wooge described the pivot in part as "a return to using exposure for prioritization." He outlined a process of moving from the universe of an estimated 10,000 chemicals that EDSP's implementing language requires the program to screen for endocrine disruption to using new toxicity tests and biomonitoring data to prioritize chemicals for screening and then running those flagged chemicals through the second tier of animal-based EDSP testing for "dose-response analysis and adversity testing."
EDSP is adopting an approach that the agency's National Center for Computational Toxicology (NCCT) calls Integrated Bioactivity Exposure Ranking (IBER), a combination of high-throughput, cellular bioactivity tests with existing biomonitoring and other exposure data. The short-term goal is to use this information to create a risk-based prioritization approach to determining when chemicals in the universe are screened. In the long term, the goal is to replace the existing first tier of 11 animal-based screening assays with high-throughput cellular assays, Wooge said.
To date, EDSP has screened one list of 52 pesticide ingredient chemicals through the traditional first tier of assays. The agency released a second list of water contaminants for comment in 2010, following congressional prodding, but has yet to finalize this list into test orders. All of the data for first list of chemicals has been submitted for some time, and EDSP staff is reviewing the submissions in weight of evidence evaluations, to determine which should go on to additional testing in any of the four assays included in EDSP Tier 2.
The agency had intended to release these decisions by the end of fiscal year 2014 but failed to meet that deadline, according to FY16 budget documents (Risk Policy Report, Feb. 10).
"We're working on consistency checks and will have them out by September," Wooge said. "I do believe that we'll have them out sooner."
Wooge added that the IBER approach has been used to review the chemicals that are on the first and second EDSP lists of chemicals. "Looking at the IBER scores for List 1 and 2, there's not a lot that we would consider higher priority," he said. "Moving to IBER may help us get to chemicals we're actually concerned about."
Agency research and EDSP officials have touted the high-throughput methods for some time, describing the approach as one that makes it possible to review the thousands of chemicals in the EDSP universe in a finite amount of time by providing better priorities for testing while reducing animal testing and saving money.
An agency source says that staff has "been working really hard" on the pivot policy document since December, adding that the document is a "response to scientific progress presented at" the last Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) meeting Dec. 2-5 in Arlington, VA, where outside experts discussed the agency's proposed shift from screening chemicals on policy-based lists to using computation and in vitro methods to prioritize screening of chemicals based on risk.
The source explains that the new policy document will "incorporate the science into the program as well as extend [the existing] policy . . . I think we have laid out a pretty clear path for three of the 11 [tier 1] assays."
EPA scientists at the last SAP meeting proposed a white paper outlining three potential goals for using their IBER estrogen bioactivity model, including "prioritize chemicals for further EDSP screening and testing based on estimated bioactivity, ii) contribute to the weight of evidence evaluation of a chemical's potential bioactivity, and iii) substitute for specific endpoints in the EDSP Tier 1 battery."
The model uses some 18 estrogen receptor signaling pathway cellular assays. EPA asked SAP whether it could use the model to replace three of the 11 animal-based assays in the original first tier of EDSP. The assays screen for estrogen receptor activity. Modeling relating to the estrogen hormone is much more advanced than for the other two hormone systems that EDSP reviews, androgen and thyroid.
In their March 2 report to the agency, the scientific advisors responded, "Overall, the Panel believed that the . . . approach is a computationally time-efficient and intuitive approach to determine the estrogenic bioactivity of a chemical. Its strengths are the use of a combination of assays, its simple and parsimonious mathematical formulation, and its performance on reference chemicals (particularly agonist chemicals). Despite a slighter poorer performance on antagonist chemicals, in general, the . . . model provides good or better results than the three assays that it is intended to replace in the existing Tier 1 screening battery." The report is available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 180904)
The panel does point out some limitations of the proposed modeling approach, which it grouped into computational and generalizability issues. "With respect to computational/inferential limitations, the Panel believed that: (i) efforts should be undertaken to account for uncertainty in the formulation of the statistical model relating receptor signal with assays; and (ii) sensitivity analyses should be conducted to assess how results change under different choices on the model parameters (e.g. the activation threshold or the penalty term in the . . . model)."
Regarding the panel's generalizability concerns, the report states, "the Panel acknowledged the possibility that the reference chemicals examined to assess the performance of the . . . model may not cover all the structural classes that are present in the entire EDSP universe of chemicals."
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Toxicologists Question 'No Harm' Standard In Boxer's TSCA Reform Bill
Apr 27, 2015 | InsideEPA - Risk Policy Report
By Maria Hegstad
The Society of Toxicology (SOT) is raising concerns with Senate and House efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), suggesting in recent letters to lawmakers that the safety standard in a bill sponsored by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer (CA) and Ed Markey (MA) is scientifically impossible to meet and questioning the use of the term "injury" in a recent draft House bill's safety standard.
"[W]e continue to have concern for how 'no harm' will be defined and how it would be tested. As toxicologists we subscribe to the premise that nothing is without some risk of potential harm," SOT writes in an April 13 letter to Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the chairman of the Environment Public Works Committee, and Boxer, the committee's ranking member. "Establishing a scientific basis for determining 'no harm' is not possible." The letters are available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 180905)
Differences in the three pending TSCA reform bills' safety standards have been a key issue, with various stakeholders supporting, opposing and debating the standards. Many environmental and public health groups support the Boxer-Markey bill in part because of their concerns that competing, bipartisan legislation sponsored by Sens. David Vitter (R-LA) and Tom Udall (D-NM) makes too few alternations to the existing TSCA safety standard, "reasonable certainty of no harm."
This standard, and a key 1995 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that vacated an EPA ban on most uses of asbestos, have doomed the agency's efforts to remove harmful industrial chemicals from the market in many environmentalists' minds. Due to these concerns, the Boxer-Markey bill adopts a different standard, borrowed from the Food Quality Protection Act.
The SOT TSCA reform task force last month provided a similar letter of advice to Inhofe and Boxer regarding the Vitter-Udall bill. In that letter, SOT urged senators to revise the bill to include language requiring EPA to define a safety standard, citing longstanding confusion about the "no unreasonable risk" standard in current law and the Udall-Vitter bill.
SOT is a professional society of some 13,000 toxicologists worldwide. Its membership is open to all toxicology professionals and includes academics, industry and government scientists. Many environmentalists consider the group to have an industry leaning.
Last month, a member of the SOT task force reviewing the TSCA reform bills said "there's not much difference," between standards the two Senate bills are proposing in the way that they are currently interpreted and applied by the agencies using their authorities. "Right now the two are being contrasted as if they are very different, and they're not," the source said.
But, the source said, "by the letter of the standard, 'reasonable certainty of no harm' is not really achievable," citing the Boxer-Markey approach. "The idea of an unreasonable risk standard can be articulated by scientific and political [measures]. It's a risk that some portion of the population would consider unreasonable" (Risk Policy Report, March 31).
SOT's advice letter regarding the Boxer-Markey bill recommends that senators modify the definition of the safety standard "to include acknowledgment that there will always be some non-zero probability of harm under intended or foreseeable conditions of use, for instance to genetically susceptible individuals. However unless these individuals make up a sizable subpopulation, it would not seem reasonable to regulate to the level of such individuals."
The letter recommends that the bill's authors consult scientific resources, such as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), "to gain further insight on this important concept in order to develop a standard that is protective of public health and scientifically sound."
SOT also raises a concern regarding the safety standard of "unreasonable risk of injury" that Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's environment subpanel, has proposed in his draft TSCA reform bill.
In a separate April 13 letter to Shimkus and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), the ranking member of the panel, SOT writes, "Unlike other TSCA Reform bills, this language is a bit different than presenting a safety assessment and a safety standard of 'no unreasonable risk of harm' . . . [and] 'injury' may be viewed by some as different from 'harm,' particularly when referring to impact on the environment. Other bills all seem to have settled on 'harm' as the appropriate term and we would support that perspective." SOT President Norbert Kaminski signed both letters.
Some environmentalists and public health activists have also lauded the Boxer-Markey bill because it specifically names asbestos as a substance that EPA must assess within two years and rule on in three years. The language seems to have become test language for some advocates' support of the legislation.
SOT, however, says it seems out of place to include it in proposed new language on section 6, where TSCA spells out EPA's authorities to ban chemicals. "The specific mention of asbestos appears out of place here. It appears to us it would be a more suitable topic in section 7 or included as an example in the discussion of high-priority chemicals (section 4)."
The letter encourages senate authors to ensure that the number of chemicals the bill requires EPA to prioritize for risk assessment "is commensurate with the resources available to the EPA."
The Boxer-Markey bill requires EPA to prioritize 15 chemicals for risk assessment in the first year after the bill's enactment, adding 15 more chemicals each year after. A source with the SOT task force says, "with reasonable resources to do the job, this should be doable. If simply added on to the current work load without resources, it will be very difficult."
SOT also comments on new TSCA sections Boxer-Markey proposes to address disease clusters, or hotspot areas where seemingly unusual numbers of individuals are sickened. Boxer and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) have long pushed a standalone bill intended to bring EPA and federal resources to these communities.
SOT, however, cautions that "this process should be inclusive of risk-based principles for identifying the causes of disease clusters and the recommendations for resolution. Because this is a significant expansion of EPA's authority, we are pleased to see the suggestion for authorizing additional appropriations to cover the costs of this program . . . Because [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has a long history of cluster investigations and has published guidance on these studies in the past, it would be appropriate that the legislation would recognize the need to build on these past efforts."
However, Boxer and Crapo's standalone bill sought to assist some communities and cluster activists who harshly criticized the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR) for its cluster investigations. These stakeholders argued that ATSDR's methods were overly long, not sufficiently place-specific and often attenuated data, making it impossible to find a cluster, let alone its cause.
In the House letter, SOT takes the House draft bill's authors to task for vague language in the bill describing how EPA should conduct dose-response analyses of chemicals, and particularly, thresholds below which the agency does not anticipate adverse effects occurring after exposure. "It would be better stated if it used the approach that EPA uses for describing a reference dose . . . an estimate, with uncertainty spanning perhaps an order of magnitude, of a daily (oral) exposure to the human population (including sensitive subgroups) that is likely to be without appreciable risk of deleterious effects during a lifetime. As stated in the discussion draft, the language is suggesting the ability to identify a dose where no effect occurs without specifying length of exposure or who is exposed."
SOT also questions the draft bill's proposed schedule for EPA to review chemicals' risks, which includes the option for industry to pay a fee for the agency to prioritize review of industry-requested chemicals. "In the spirit of openness and transparency of the nomination process, it seems that there should be an opportunity for other informed parties, such as states or other non-manufacturer entities, to make such a request. Since the bill puts the onus on the manufacturer to pay for the risk evaluation if they request it, this language as presented may place limitations on who could afford to request an evaluation and might negatively affect who would or could make such requests."
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Senate Panel Approves Toxic Chemical Safety Bill
Apr 28, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A Senate committee passed a bill Tuesday that would reform the federal government’s regulation of toxic chemicals for the first time in decades.
The bill passed by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee represents a last-minute bipartisan compromise that attracted the votes of all Republicans and four Democrats on the panel.
The measure would overhaul the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and is named after late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who worked hard toward a TSCA reform bill for years before dying in 2013.
The draft bill introduced in March was criticized by most Democrats as a giveaway to the chemical industry, prompting Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.), its sponsors, to negotiate a new compromise.
“This work reflects the ongoing, strong, bipartisan effort between Sen. Udall and myself and others. This bill is a marked improvement over current law,” Vitter said.
“Sen. Udall and I took the concerns presented by many colleagues and stakeholders and set out to make the bill even stronger.”
The bill increases penalties for chemical violations, mandates that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) review new and existing chemicals for safety and requires that safety decisions be made solely on public health grounds.
After weeks of negotiation, the bill passed Tuesday allows states greater flexibility to regulate chemicals on which the EPA has not acted and lets states enforce rules along with the federal government, among other compromises.
Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) supported the compromise bill, along with Udall.
But while Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) applauded the compromises, she continued to oppose it and proposed amendments to give states even more power and require the EPA to monitor and act on cancer “clusters” in local areas.
“This is the environment committee, not the boardroom of the chemical companies,” she said, promising to vote “no” without improvements to it.
The panel did not approve any of her amendments before the 15-5 vote in favor of the bill, sending it to the full Senate for consideration.
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Senate EPW Easily Approves TSCA Compromise
Apr 28, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee easily approved a bipartisan plan this morning to overhaul federal oversight of dangerous chemicals, a day after Sens. Tom Udall and David Vitter cemented a deal with liberals that should give the bill a strong chance of getting through the full Senate.
The bill — named after the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg — would make the first significant changes to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, a law overseen by EPA that people on all sides call woefully insufficient.
Today’s 15-5 committee vote came after three more Democrats on the panel — Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley and Cory Booker — signed onto a deal Monday that addresses several objections to Udall and Vitter’s earlier version. Delaware Democrat Tom Carper also supported the bill today.
Among other changes, the new bill limits to five years a regulatory “pause” in which states could not take action on hazardous chemicals while EPA has failed to act. That’s down from seven years in the original bill.
But the compromise didn’t convince Environment and Public Works ranking member Barbara Boxer, even though the California Democrat lauded “great improvements” in the deal compared with the original version. “We are witnessing the death of that original bill,” she said.
The committee rejected several amendments from Democrats, including one from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that would have allowed states to keep acting on chemicals until EPA completes studies and determines a chemical is unsafe.
It’s unclear when the bill will hit the Senate floor. -
New TSCA Draft From Udall, Vitter Lures More Liberal Support
Apr 28, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Goode
Sens. Tom Udall and David Vitter have picked up some crucial liberal backing for their latest attempt to retool the government’s oversight of dangerous chemicals, a move that could further isolate Sen. Barbara Boxer’s last-ditch efforts to derail the bipartisan legislation.
Language in a newly circulated draft, obtained by POLITICO before a markupTuesday, addressed some of the biggest objections that several Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee lodged against an earlier version by Udall (D-N.M.) and Vitter (R-La.) — namely that it would pre-empt states’ toxic controls without providing firm deadlines for EPA to act on high-priority chemicals.
The new compromise would shorten the period in which states are prohibited from acting on their own, among other changes. It would also allow states to co-enforce chemical regulations with the federal government, though states could not impose greater penalties for violations than federal law allows, according to asummary of the changes. Either state or federal officials — but not both — could collect the penalties.
The compromise would also push back a deadline for grandfathering in existing and upcoming state chemical actions, from January to August.
The changes particularly addressed concerns that committee Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Cory Booker of New Jersey raised during a hearing last month. The three Democrats are co-sponsoring the new compromise, which Vitter filed as a manager’s amendment Monday. (Udall is the bill’s sponsor but is not a member of the committee.)
“We now have a historic opportunity to update and improve the law, and I believe the agreement announced today will help give American families peace of mind that everyday products we rely on are safe,” Whitehouse said in a statement contained in a news release with Udall, Merkley and Booker late Monday afternoon.
The agreement “greatly strengthens the ability of states to protect citizens from toxic chemicals when the federal government has failed to do so,” Merkley said. “It’s a vast improvement over the broken law currently in force and an important step in protecting families across America.”
There is broad consensus that the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, the major federal law on hazardous chemicals, is woefully insufficient and needs to be updated. But many environmental and public health groups said the initial Udall-Vitter proposal would be worse than existing law because it would prohibit states like California from imposing controls stronger than the EPA’s regulations.
The opponents support an alternative bill that Boxer (Calif.), the committee’s top Democrat, is offering with Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Their version would not pre-empt efforts by states to levy tougher laws and penalties on chemical companies than EPA would pursue.
Bipartisan talks are also continuing in the House on a draft framework that is less expansive than the Senate version.
Whitehouse said at a hearing last month that the original Udall-Vitter bill would create a “death zone” of non-regulation by prohibiting states from crafting their own rules for a period while giving EPA no deadline to regulate chemicals. Booker had called the initial state pre-emption language “a serious problem and defect in this bill.”
The support by Whitehouse and Merkley for the new draft is important because of their strong ties to environmental groups. Booker’s support is crucial too given that he holds the Senate seat formerly held by the late Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat for whom the bill is named.
Lautenberg “made strengthening federal laws to better protect Americans from toxic substances and pollutants one of his top priorities, working tirelessly to find common ground across party lines to advance important reforms of” TSCA, Booker said. “Reaching a bipartisan agreement to improve the legislation bearing his name is a fitting way to honor this great New Jerseyan’s legacy.”
Lautenberg had offered an earlier compromise with Vitter on the chemical bill just a couple of weeks before dying in 2013. Lautenberg made TSCA reform a legacy issue in his later years, one that his widow has called even more important than Lautenberg’s famous work in banning smoking on airplanes.
None of this is likely to sway Boxer, who emphasized at last month’s hearing that more than 400 groups and eight state attorneys general oppose the Udall-Vitter bill. “I’ve never seen in all the years I’ve been here such opposition to legislation,” the California Democrat said.
Even so, the partisan lines on the bill have long been blurred, especially after Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) — one of the biggest success stories for green groups in the 2014 elections — joined liberals like Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) as co-sponsors of the Udall-Vitter legislation.
In all, 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans signed on as co-sponsors before the new manager’s amendment emerged, and the bill was already on a likely quick path through the committee.
The negotiations that led to Vitter filing the compromise appears to have involved just about every major player on the panel, except for Boxer. “It seems like everybody’s at the table, except one,” one Senate Democratic aide said.
The negotiations and drafting of the compromise went right up to Monday’s 10 a.m. deadline for filing amendments ahead of Tuesday’s markup.
The Environmental Defense Fund has been the sole environmental organization officially supporting Udall and Vitter from the beginning.
“With the agreed-upon changes, the revised bill represents a strong, bipartisan compromise that fixes the major flaws in current law and addresses each of the key concerns raised by Members at the March hearing,” EDF’s Richard Denison said.
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US Industry Executives Told TSCA Reform Prospects Are Good
Apr 28, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Prospects are good for the passage of the two bipartisan bills to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in the Senate and House.
This was the message conveyed to members of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (Socma) during a visit to Washington DC last week.
More than 40 executives of the society's member companies took part in its annual "fly-in" event, lobbying 100 congressional offices on TSCA reform and other issues.
There were some lingering concerns in Democratic offices about the TSCA bills, says Bill Allmond, Socma's vice president of government and public relations. However, he adds, “overall we didn't hear from many offices that either one of these TSCA reform bills are bad"
“We heard that the bills are a good start and are worthy of further consideration. So we are quite optimistic … that we have a very good shot [at TSCA reform] this year.”
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Progress, Not Breakthrough, in Senate Reform Fight; Most Important Work Lies Ahead
Apr 28, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Andy Igrejas
Last night Senators Merkley (D-OR), Whitehouse (D-RI), and Booker (D-NJ) announced they were joining Senators Udall and Vitter in a new version of the controversial Senate chemical reform bill. Technically, the new version is a “substitute” of the old that will be adopted today in a voting session of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The vote is an important milestone but it is not the final word.
The three Senators are all strong advocates for public health and the environment. They put their collective backs into getting important changes to the bill. Many, if not most, of the changes are ones that we have specifically called for. Our hats go off to them, truly.
We’re keeping our work boots on, however. And so should you. If the goal is meaningful reform that does some good and no harm, we’re not there yet. Let’s get there.Here’s the good news:The rollbacks to EPA’s authority over imports and consumer products that were in the previous version have been removed.The potential loophole where chemicals can be set aside without a safety review (“low priority designations”) will now be subject to the accountability of citizen suits.States’ ability to co-enforce federal restrictions is restored (though with some caveats).The bill makes some progress in getting EPA to prioritize Persistent, Bio-accumulative Toxins and potentially regulate them more thoroughly.
There are other positive changes that are meaningful, and for which they deserve credit (if not all quite as meaningful as the hyperbolic press release would have you believe).Here’s the bad news:There is a new rollback to EPA’s authority to restrict significant new uses of a chemical.The Senators “split the baby” on states’ authority to protect their citizens.
King Solomon didn’t go through with it. Neither should Congress.
People forget that “splitting the baby” was actually a bad thing in the original Bible story. King Solomon didn’t go through with it. Neither should Congress.
What does it mean in this context? The biggest flashpoint in the Senate hearing was the unprecedented timing of preemption in the Senate bill. For the first time in any environmental legislation, states would be blocked from taking action even in the absence of federal regulation. They would have been blocked when EPA began the review of a chemical. That process could drag on for 7 years if EPA met its deadlines under the bill. Many more if EPA blew its deadlines, as is often the case.
All three Senators opposed this policy. The California Attorney General said it created a “regulatory void” where the public can’t be protected. More colorfully, Senator Whitehouse called this mandatory no-protection period a “death zone.” But the Senators hit a brick wall in trying to get this provision removed. I’m not sure why. A consistent rumor is that the more ideological oil companies will kill any reform proposal that does not include it, that they need a concrete “get,” if they are to let even modest reform slip through. None of that is on the record anywhere, however. The auto industry loudly objected to the lack of a void in the House TSCA bill back in April, which surprised me. Perhaps they are behind this hard line on preemption.
Nevertheless, faced with the hard line, the three Senators negotiated a work-around. Under the substitute version of the bill, the preemption would begin when EPA published a document specifying the scope of its review of the chemical. States would be blocked from restricting the uses of the chemical specified in the document at that point. If EPA finds the chemical safe for all those uses – after a multi-year review – the preemption sticks. If EPA decides it is unsafe, however, the preemption is lifted while EPA considers its own regulation. Under the deadline of the bill, the void would now last 2.5 years or up to 4.5 with extensions, instead of 7. To sweeten the pot, they allowed states to pursue a waiver of the preemption during the void. EPA has 90 days to decide on the waiver, but if they don’t, the waiver is granted. But wait! The waiver itself can be challenged. But don’t worry! The 90 day thing kicks in again. And so on and so forth.
Got all that?
Therein lies the problem. This is an improvement, sure, but it is complicated and process-laden and probably won’t work when the whole point was supposed to be making it easier to regulate chemicals- not initiating a state/federal ping-pong match.
The preemption is still unprecedented. The Attorneys General for our largest states still strongly oppose it. Some of their staff have described it as legally incoherent. It has to go.
The convoluted outcome brings up a broader point: the original bill was so bad that many of us have been grading it on a curve. It has improved a bunch, to be sure. Our own critique has driven much of that improvement, and several Senators, especially the trio, deserve credit for making it better. But when you pull back you’re left with a bill that has a lot of unnecessary provisions, some harmful ones, and modest proactive reforms. It needs more work.
The House “Discussion Draft” raised the possibility of a more straightforward approach. They didn’t get the details right in the first draft, but I’m hopeful. Chairman Shimkus (R-IL) agreed to a number of critical changes in the committee hearing right there from the dais. He’s working closely with Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Paul Tonko (D-NY), both strong public health advocates. Shimkus already showed an independence from whomever it is that is driving the preemption overreach on the Senate side in releasing the Discussion Draft. There is no “void.” If he follows through in the same manner and works with his colleagues in the spirit of that April 14th hearing, they could potentially put together a superior product to the Senate. They could also do it more easily because the underlying bill is massively less complicated.
So let’s keep working to fix both bills and keep our eyes on the prize: real progress for public health and a rational framework for industry. Congress should not tie itself in knots and remake the state-federal relationship for some unseen force.
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On Workers' Memorial Day 2015, An Appeal to Control Toxic Substances
Apr 28, 2015 | The Center for Public Integrity
By Jim Morris
The Center for Public Integrity will be covering worker safety throughout the year and we need your help. Head over to our Facebook Community to join a conversation around this topic.
Each year in advance of Workers’ Memorial Day — April 28 — a group in Philadelphia tries to tally every job-related death that occurred in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware the previous year.
This year’s list includes 145 names, among them Duane Canipe, 65, who fell through a skylight and landed 23 feet below on May 11, 2014; Moses G. Fisher, 24, who was overcome by methane gas in a grain silo on September 17, 2014; and Adrian Perez, 54, whose clothing became entangled in a concrete-crushing machine on January 9, 2015.
Perpetually uncounted are those who die of work-related illnesses — the “invisible victims” who succumb, generally years after exposure, to poisons such as asbestos, said Barbara Rahke, executive director of thePhiladelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health. “It’s almost impossible to get their names,” she said.
Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4,585 people were killed on the job in this country in 2013. Experts say, however, that the death toll from occupational disease in America may be 10 or more times higher. Workers in developing nations almost certainly have it worse.
For this reason, the International Trade Union Confederation — a Brussels-based organization that represents 176 million workers belonging to 328 national affiliates, such as the AFL-CIO in the United States — decided that its theme for Workers’ Memorial Day 2015 would be “removing exposure to hazardous substances in the workplace.”
“Chemicals we would have imagined by now would be globally banned keep popping up,” the confederation’s general secretary, Sharan Burrow, said in a recent telephone interview. “We see emerging fears around some of the new technological issues such as nanotechnology... it’s extraordinary, really. There’s a lot of fear amongst workers.”
In a new report, the confederation cites what it calls a “cautious estimate” from the International Labour Organization that puts the annual death toll from workplace toxics at 651,279 worldwide. That’s one death every 52 seconds. The ILO says there are 160 million new cases of occupational disease each year.
Chemical use, meanwhile, is soaring. More than 84,000 chemicals, only a fraction tested for safety, are in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Substances Control Act inventory, up from 62,000 in 1982. The North American chemical market is expected to grow by 25 percent from 2012 to 2020, according to a report from the United Nations Environment Programme.
“The reality is, workers have very little capacity today to track exposures in their careers,” said Anabella Rosemberg, the International Trade Union Confederation’s Paris-based policy advisor for occupational health, safety and environment. “When workers changes sectors or companies very often, we don’t have health systems that allow them to know what substances they’ve been exposed to.” The burden is on the worker to prove harm, Rosemberg said. “This needs to change.”
The epidemic of work-related cancer and other diseases cries out for stricter regulation, say Rosemberg and her counterpart at the AFL-CIO, Peg Seminario. “We have very few standards to protect workers [in the U.S.], and those we have are 40 or 50 years old and woefully out of date,” Seminario said.
The U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration admitted as much in a 2013 press release introducing a new Web tool to allow workers and employers to compare OSHA’s chemical exposure limits with often-stricter ones recommended by other agencies or bodies or enforced by the state of California. “There is no question that many of OSHA’s chemical standards are not adequately protective,” David Michaels, assistant labor secretary for occupational safety and health, was quoted as saying in the release.
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Groups Urge Protection From Toxics on Workers' Memorial Day
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
April 28 is Workers' Memorial Day, which labor and occupational safety groups say should be seen as a call to action for greater safety reforms for employees.
More than 4,000 people were killed on the job in the United States in 2013, and the toll from occupational illnesses may be far higher, experts say.
Barbara Rahke, executive director of the Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health, counted 145 names on a list of workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware in 2014.
Experts say the death toll from occupational illnesses may be 10 times higher.
For those people, "it's almost impossible to get their names," Rahke said.
Hazardous chemicals pose a particular threat, the International Trade Union Confederation said.
General Secretary Sharan Burrow said workers are still threatened by substances "we would have imagined by now would be globally banned."
Some U.S. regulators, including the top official at the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, have said they feel their hands are tied.
"There is no question that many of OSHA's chemical standards are not adequately protective," David Michaels, assistant Labor secretary for occupational safety and health, said in 2013 (Jim Morris, Center for Public Integrity, April 28). -- SP
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Watchdogs: "More Harm than Good" in Toxic Substances Update
Apr 28, 2015 | Public News Service
By Mike Clifford
Backers say it will provide a long-needed update to the Toxic Substances Control Act, but local consumer advocates say a measure pending in the U.S. Senate could result in less protection for consumers. Anne Hulick, Connecticut state director of Clean Water Action in Hartford, said Connecticut has been a leader in protecting people from dangerous chemicals, but the Senate bill could block states from taking action. "So, if the chemical is placed on the list that the EPA is going to take a look at," she said, "that effectively pre-empts any state actions for the next seven years." Under the measure, Hulick said, the Environmental Protection Agency only would review about 25 chemicals in the next five years. That can't keep pace with the 84,000 chemicals already on the market - and more added each day, she said. Senate Bill 697, introduced by Sens. David Vitter, R-La., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., has the support of the chemical industry. Hulick described her group as "relieved" that, to date, neither Sens. Richard Blumenthal nor Chris Murphy, both D-Conn., has signed on to support the measure. "Right now, the bill causes more harm than good," she said, "so it's important that both senators work with their colleagues in Washington to make sure that what goes forward really does protect public health." Hulick said some major retailers including Home Depot are voluntarily stepping up to protect consumers from hazardous chemicals such as phthalates which can be found in dangerous levels in some vinyl flooring products. "They are strongly linked to birth defects; also asthma, which is a big prolem here in Connecticut," she said. "We have high rates of asthma." Hulick and her group are urging other retailers to commit to phasing out phthalate products in 2015. The measure comes up in the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee today. Information on the bill is online at govtrack.us
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Toxic Chemical Bill: Is the Devil in the Details?
Apr 28, 2015 | Public News Service
By Mary Kuhlman
The U.S. Senate is considering an update of the nearly 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act, which regulates the use of chemicals in consumer products. Supporters claim Senate Bill 697 would improve regulation, but opponents argue that the devil is in the details.
While the bill is an improvement from prior sessions, said Lyn Kaatz Chary, owner of Environmental Strategies and Consulting in Gary, it still doesn't make the grade in terms of health and safety protections.
"Although this particular bill did address many of the issues with earlier legislation," she said, "in the end, some of the most crucial issues did not get dealt with, or they actually became worse, in this bill."
As an example, she said, states could lose their ability to take action on a chemical if the Environmental Protection Agency already is taking a look at it. She said other loopholes include allowing the EPA to exempt chemicals from regulation based on a cursory review instead of a full safety examination.
A markup of the bill is scheduled today in a Senate committee, and a vote soon could follow.
Pressure has mounted to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act, said Andy Igrejas, director of the group "Safer Chemicals, Heathy Families." While it's good that the chemical industry came to the table, he said, it looks as if it proposed and gathered support for reforms favorable to itself.
"There's something wrong when you have legislation that is being sold as a major public health protection, and the only people supporting it are the very industry that is supposed to be regulated by it," Igrejas said. "Yet, that's what we have."
The bill was introduced by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and its bipartisan cosponsors include Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind. Kaatz Chary said she believes he's on the wrong track.
"He has the best of intentions, but I think that he's unfortunately very mistaken in believing that the bill that he's currently supporting is going to do the job that he sees needs to get done," she said. "But it's not going to get accomplished by that particular bill."
In a statement, Donnelly said he's pleased to be a part of the bipartisan effort to modernize the toxic chemical laws.
Information on the bill is online at govtrack.us. -
Sidley Austin's Martella Talks 'Toxic Confusion' Over Senate's TSCA Reform Bill
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - TV
With the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee set to mark up a chemical safety reform bill today, what is the future of the legislation and potential for final passage? During today's OnPoint, Roger Martella, an environmental attorney at Sidley Austin and the former general counsel at U.S. EPA, rebuts criticism to aspects of the reform bill, including pre-emption, and reviews standards. He also discusses how reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act could open the door for the review of other environmental laws.Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Hello, and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Roger Martella, an environmental attorney with Sidley Austin and the former general counsel at U.S. EPA. Roger, thanks for coming back on the show.
Roger Martella: Thanks, Monica. It's great to be back.
Monica Trauzzi: Roger, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is set to mark up on Tuesday a chemical safety reform bill. It's been widely debated, but it does seem to have some bipartisan support at this point. The argument from some, though, is that the bill is comprehensive on its face, but when it comes down to substance, it won't go as far as needed. How much of a final compromise are you anticipating heading into the markup?
Roger Martella: I think that's an unwarranted criticism, you know. In the United States, we have the strongest, most comprehensive environmental laws in the country, but this is a law that was enacted in 1976 and it's gone untouched since. It's been kind of the shaky leg of our table of a very comprehensive system in environmental laws, and so this is really critical reform. I mean, imagine driving around in a car from 1976 with leaded gas, no air bags, no seat belts, and that's what we're effectively entrusting chemical protection to in the United States. We don't want to drive this car until the engine just breaks down. We need something that reflects modern technology, all the science, all the developments, all the research of the last 40 years, and it is bipartisan. I think there's 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats that are supporting it. Of course there'll be compromise. There should be compromise, but this is, I think, the most optimistic gesture we've seen from Congress on environmental legislation in probably 25 years, and that should be encouraged.
Monica Trauzzi: Which amendments are most significant and are you watching for most closely?
Roger Martella: I think the issue that people are looking at primarily at the cutting edge are pre-emption and the setting of the standard, and I think there's two key points there. I think the pre-emption criticisms have been vastly overstated at the outset. Any environmental -- state environmental law that is in existence as of January 1st of this year that addresses a chemical from any state will not be pre-empted under the language that -- that is being proposed, and so there's no pre-emption of existing laws, and the pre-emption of future regulations is limited, only when EPA actually proposes to enact the scope for a new chemical, and even then there's waivers that states can pursue. And then on the standard itself, the standard's a vast improvement compared to the existing TSCA, much more aggressive, much more protective of human health and the environment than the current standard. It seeks to take cost-benefit analysis out of the setting of the standard and set a standard purely based on risk factors. And another updating, another modernizing of the law that's necessary, which is something that I think is critically important, it looks not only at protecting the population as a whole, but also sensitive populations like children and pregnant women and the elderly. This is a landmark development that could be used in other laws as well.
Monica Trauzzi: And you've written about this, you wrote a blog post on the subject, and it was entitled "Toxic Confusion." Do you think there's been confusion or misunderstanding about this bill overall?
Roger Martella: I think there has been. Again, I think it's beyond debate that we're looking at a tool that's, you know, 40 years old and should be, you know, indisputable that we should be modernizing it to protect Americans from chemicals, but there seems to be just a lot of concern in general with legislative reform of environmental laws of, you know, opening things up, and I think unnecessarily creating criticisms that don't actually hold up when you read the plain language. And for example, the concern that this is a setback in the standard from the existing TSCA. It's actually an advancement towards protection because it takes costs and benefits out of the equation. It's similar to the NAAQS standard where you don't consider cost and benefits in actually setting the standard. That's something I think should be encouraged in this particular context.
Monica Trauzzi: There's a lot of back-and-forth on what states can do versus what EPA does. Why is that such an important distinction and part of the discussion?
Roger Martella: All of our environmental laws are based on the system of cooperative federalism, which is a delicate balance between the federal government setting the standards and then roles for states to implement the standards, but we have to tweak that in each individual context. What the law says here is if a state has an existing regulation of a chemical, that's not going to go away so long as it was in effect before January of this year. That will always stay intact. But in the future, the law's based on a premise that all Americans deserve the same amount of environmental protection from chemicals, and so it avoids a patchwork quilt of different levels of protections based on what state you have to live in towards the Environmental Protection Agency looking at what is really necessary to protect human health and welfare and to make sure that all Americans in all 50 states are subject to a consistent standard going forward.
Monica Trauzzi: The chemical industry has lobbied very hard, heavily on the reform bill. They've been actively involved in the discussions for many years. So does the industry ultimately come out as a winner here?
Roger Martella: I think there's been a wide group of people who've been in favor of this. Obviously the chemical industry, which will be subject to the regulation and is basically asking Congress to subject it to more stringent regulation by far than it has today, sees the certainty of regulation as very important. There's a myth out there that industry doesn't want to be regulated. I don't know anyone who says we don't want to be subject to regulation; we just want to be subject to the right regulation that actually reaches good results and good benefits. But the Environmental Defense Fund, just recently there was a letter of a number of medical professionals and organizations saying that TSCA is outdated and it's not giving them the tools they need as medical professionals to protect human health and welfare and they're -- they said there's a dire -- in their words, a dire need for Congress to address these issues to give them the tools they need to address the health concerns that they see.
Monica Trauzzi: You alluded to this earlier. Do you think the TSCA reform could open the door for Congress to review other environmental laws?
Roger Martella: I'd like to believe so. It's not just TSCA that's outdated. I mean, things have changed in the last several decades. Technology has changed. We're basically -- the lawyers at EPA are being asked to effectively fix state-of-the-art Teslas but given tools from a backyard garage from the 1970s to do so. And there's been this notion that we don't have the bipartisan support to open up laws, and if we do, there's risks. I think what this bipartisan effort is showing, again, 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats, that those risks can be managed, but we can really achieve better outcomes for the Americans if we bring these ideas together. So I do hope that this, if successful, will set an example of looking at some of the other laws and modernizing them to address climate change or new water concerns and some of these newer concerns that we've seen evolve over the last several decades that the laws originally were not intended to address.
Monica Trauzzi: Those would be some very, very interesting discussions to watch. Thank you for coming on the show.
Roger Martella: Thank you, Monica.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
[End of Audio]
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Lautenberg Legacy Bill Wins Bipartisan Support in Senate Committee
Apr 28, 2015 | NorthJersey.com
By Herb Jackson
A bill named in honor of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg that overhauls a widely criticized law governing what chemicals can be used in consumer products won bipartisan support in a Senate committee Tuesday.
But some Democrats vowed to keep fighting to make it stronger.
Sen. Cory Booker, the Newark Democrat who succeeded Lautenberg after his death in 2013, voted for the bill after working with several colleagues for changes that included more power for states to act on chemicals if the federal government doesn’t.
“While this bill represents a compromise and is not perfect, the bipartisan consensus we have attained is a significant step forward in long-stalled efforts,” Booker said in a statement released late Monday.
Lautenberg, New Jersey’s longest-serving senator, had been trying for more than a decade to rewrite the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act before he died in June 2013.
The current law allows chemicals to be used in products unless the Environmental Protection Agency can prove they are dangerous, a strategy that has been denounced as ineffective. In the nearly 40 years since TSCA was enacted, only 200 chemicals have been fully tested, and five banned.
The new bill, sponsored by Louisiana Republican David Vitter and New Mexico Democrat Tom Udall, would set safety standards for thousands of chemicals that are now unregulated and offer protections for those vulnerable to their effects such as pregnant women, children and workers.
Changes sought by Booker and other Democrats on the Environment and Public Works Committee changed language that would have pre-empted many state laws, and provides more time for states to adopt new laws that will be grandfathered under the bill. Changes will also allow states to enforce the federal law, makes it easier for chemicals to be classified as a high priority for EPA action, and calls on companies to look for scientifically reliable alternatives to animal testing when evaluating chemicals.
The committee rejected several amendments proposed by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass.
Before the final vote, Boxer said that while Democratic negotiators had improved a bad bill, there were still problems that she would fight on the Senate floor.
“I will stand on my feet until I can’t stand on my feet any more because I refuse to bend in the face of serious problems,” Boxer said before the committee vote.
The committee chairman, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, said the complicated issues involved in rewriting the law was one reason Lautenberg worked for 10 years on crafting a new bill with no success.
“You can always find objections,” Inhofe said.
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5 Steps to Safer Chemicals in Products
Apr 28, 2015 | Environmental Leader
Consumers want safer chemicals and ingredients in their products, and they want companies to be transparent about what’s in their products.
To meet this demand and achieve a competitive advantage,retailers and manufacturers including Target, Walmart and SC Johnson have taken steps to phase out hazardous chemicals in their products and encourage product transparency.
In an Environmental Defense Fund blog post, the nonprofit identifies a blueprint for safer chemicals in the marketplace that it says it has discovered in working with Walmart and other businesses. The blueprint lists five things companies can do to ensure safer products.
EDF’s five “key pillars” are:Institutional Commitment: Firms needs a written corporate chemicals policy and solid commitment from company executives.Supply Chain Transparency: Before a manufacturer or retailer can flesh out its plan to introduce safer products, they must know the chemicals used to make products.Informed Consumers: Transparency meets customer demands for increased product safety and sustainability.Safer Chemicals Plan: This plan is the roadmap for using safer chemicals and phasing out hazardous chemicals. EDF says “it provides the structure for evaluating chemical safety with respect to workers, neighboring communities and consumers; prioritizing, managing and eliminating chemicals of concern; and evaluating, determining and introducing safer alternatives. The plan also provides a basis for communication with suppliers, customers and consumers.”Public Commitment: Communicate the company’s policy, timelines and progress — successes and pitfalls — towards safer chemicals. This can also lead to useful partnerships with other organizations that can provide expertise and best practices.
Takeaway: Phasing out hazardous chemicals in products can give retailers and manufacturers a competitive advantage. EDF outlines five things companies can do to encourage safer products and transparency.
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California Consults on Regulatory Changes to Prop 65 Listing
Apr 28, 2015 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is seeking comments on additional changes it has made to its proposed Proposition 65 chemical listing by the Labor Code Regulation.
This stipulates that the code should only be used to list Prop 65 chemicals for which a link between exposure and cancer has been proven (CW 11 August 2014).
The changes were in response to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) disapproving the proposal, in January, for failing to comply with the “clarity standard” of government code section 11349.1.
After consideration of the OAL determination, the OEHHA decided to modify the proposed regulatory language in subsection (a)(1). The agency also considered stakeholder comments, submitted during the regulatory process, and modified the text to not include potential listing under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (Osha) Hazard Communication Standard as part of the proposed action.
Comments to be submitted by 15 May.
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(ACC Mentioned) Energy Department Approves Six LNG Export Plants, More Coming
Apr 28, 2015 | The New American
By Bob Adelmann
On April 14, the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commissionpublished a remarkable summary of its recent approvals for private energy companies to build LNG (liquid natural gas) export plants along the East and Gulf Coasts.
What’s remarkable is that for decades the DOE has bought the argument that exporting LNG to customers around the world might jeopardize its supply here in the United States. It also bought the argument that allowing private producers to ship their product overseas would only encourage more fracking here with its claimed attendant but unproven dangers to the environment.
That the DOE is giving approval to LNG export facilities is proof that reality has finally replaced ideology at the agency, at least for the moment. As expected, the head bureaucrat in charge, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, is taking all the credit:
We anticipate becoming big players, and I think we’ll have a big impact. [With our approval of these plants] we’re going to influence the whole global LNG market.
Five LNG export plants are already under construction: Sabine and Hackberrry, Louisiana; Freeport and Corpus Christi, Texas; and Cove Point, Maryland. The private capital involved is monstrous: The Cove Point facility investment is $3.8 billion, while the Sabine Pass plant will pump $10 billion into the local economy. Sempra Energy is investing $10 billion into the Hackberry project, while the Freeport plant will require $11 billion of private capital. Construction at a second Sabine Pass plant is about to begin.
And this is just the beginning. As Steve Mueller, head of Southwestern Energy, the fourth largest producer of natural gas in the country, put it: “We’re just fifteen years into a 150-year process.” According to the American Chemistry Council more than $130 billion in new investment will pour into the corridor from Houston to New Orleans over just the next eight years.
Naysayers are questioning the move in light of the drop in oil prices, reducing the advantage LNG has in cost per unit of energy. But technology continues race ahead of the drop in oil prices, making the equation favoring LNG remain increasingly attractive. Mueller called his company’s new technology “amazing,” noting that just eight years ago it took his company 17 days to drill a 2,600-foot deep natural gas well, while today it takes just six days to drill a 5,400-foot well.
Translation: Natural gas drillers can produce a third more natural gas today with just 280 rigs than they did in 2009 with 1,200 rigs.
The shale revolution continues to boggle the mind. In 2007, U.S. monthly natural gas production was just five BCF (billion cubic feet) per day. Today, thanks to fracking technology, monthly production is approaching 40 BCF every day, with no signs of any slowdown.
This is putting pressure on the DOE to allow that gas to be liquefied, put into enormous 1,000-foot long container ships, and shipped abroad where natural gas costs three to four times as much. For instance, natural gas sells for about $2.50 per million BTUs in the United States, but in Europe it’s $7 and in Asia $10, making it enormously profitable for producers to make these huge investments.
The arguments against granting these permits by environmentalists increasingly make little sense. For example, Kate DeAngelis, an anti-energy campaigner for Friends of the Earth, decried the Obama administration’s willingness to let the DOE move ahead with these approvals:
In supporting liquefied natural gas exports, President Obama is treating climate change like a game of peek-a-boo, opening his eyes to the harmful effects of carbon but closing them to the devastating disruption potential of methane.
Allowing more LNG exports completely counteracts President Obama’s expressed commitment to reduce emissions and protect the public health.
Facts don’t matter to DeAngelis, apparently. Using natural gas as an energy source puts out far fewer carbon emissions than does either oil or coal. And much of the LNG that will be shipped abroad will be used to replace coal-fired power plants.
Facts also don’t matter to Deb Nardone, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Natural Gas Campaign, who claimed:
Exporting LNG will mean more drilling and fracking, and that means more climate pollution, more risk of contaminated groundwater, and more threats to the health of people who live near gas wells.
There are other reasons to cheer the DOE’s change of heart. Increased LNG sales to Europe from the United States will weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s present chokehold on countries there currently relying on Russia to provide them with natural gas. Increases in investment here will mean more jobs here, and will continue — and likely accelerate — the return of the manufacturing industry to the United States, where costs now are lower than overseas. Coupled with reduced emissions worldwide, cheaper energy everywhere will benefit users and consumers across the globe.
As Margo Thorning, vice president and chief economist for the American Council for Capital Formation, put it, “The case for expediting export permits for U.S.-produced liquefied natural gas has moved from logical to compelling.” She added:
Given the compelling economic implications of letting America realize its potential as an LNG exporter, we do not have time to waste on faux environmental arguments.
As the DOE continues to grant LNG export permits (there are reportedly dozens of applications pending), the shift in the world’s energy equation can almost be felt underfoot. At the moment, OPEC member Qatar is the world’s largest LNG exporter. The Marcellus formation underneath Pennsylvania,all by itself, outproduces Qatar. As the DOE steps aside and lets the free market work its magic, the United States will resume its role as the world’s energy powerhouse. That role could continue for decades, perhaps even generations, to come.
A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor toThe New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.
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Bills Addressing Earthquakes, Methane Pass Calif. Assembly Committee
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Debra Kahn
California lawmakers approved bills yesterday dealing with hydraulic fracturing's effect on seismic activity and methane emissions.
The Assembly Natural Resources Committee passed A.B. 1490 and A.B. 1501, both by Assemblymember Anthony Rendon (D), who represents part of Los Angeles. The committee approved both bills 5-3.
A.B. 1490 would put a moratorium on nearby fracking after an earthquake of 2.0 or greater in magnitude, until the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources determines that fracking does not heighten the risk of seismic activity. The bill does not yet specify how far a well could be located from the epicenter of the earthquake and still continue operations.
Current law requires well operators to cease operations after a magnitude-2.7 quake. The state had originally proposed a standard of magnitude 2.0 but increased it because California's network of earthquake sensors isn't precise enough to pinpoint such a small quake (EnergyWire, Oct. 10, 2014).
A.B. 1490 would also prohibit wastewater disposal wells and all well stimulation treatments within 10 miles of a fault that has been active in the past 200 years. While no earthquakes in California have been linked to fracking or wastewater injection, Rendon cited the U.S. Geological Survey's finding that an increase in seismicity has coincided with wastewater injection in Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Ohio.
The fact that California has hundreds of earthquakes per year doesn't mean that oil drilling operations don't play a role, Rendon said. He likened the argument to saying that "the fact there's been people dying for a long time means that car accidents don't cause death."
Oil industry opponents of the bill said that other states' experiences shouldn't necessarily apply to California.
"Trying to impose this new moratorium on well stimulation and wastewater treatment disposal just because there are other states that are doing this just doesn't hold water for California," said Brian White, a lobbyist for the Western States Petroleum Association.
A.B. 1501 would require the state Air Resources Board or local air districts to set and enforce emissions standards for methane emissions near fracking operations. It would require agencies to install equipment near well sites to monitor for methane and 11 other chemicals, including acetone, ethanol and propane.
WSPA also opposed that bill, as did the California Manufacturers & Technology Association, California Chamber of Commerce and California Independent Petroleum Association.
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API Wants in on Offshore Fracking Lawsuit
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The oil and gas industry's biggest trade group is again jumping into a lawsuit that challenges oil and gas drilling off the coast of California.
The American Petroleum Institute on Saturday asked a federal court to allow it to join Department of the Interior regulators in defending against a Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit that accuses the agency of permitting offshore oil and gas development without adequately considering the effect on the environment. The industry group is already intervening as a defendant in a similar legal challenge brought by the California-based Environmental Defense Center (EnergyWire, March 19).
Attorneys for the group say API is entitled to join the lawsuit because the outcome of the litigation will directly affect member companies' financial interests in the Pacific Ocean.
"[A]lthough Governmental agencies and officials are named as the defendants," API said in a legal filing, "in practice, restricting the offshore drilling activities of API's members is 'a central goal of this action,' thus clearly qualifying API for intervention as of right."
The motion also notes that two drilling permits challenged in the CBD case are held by Freeport-McMoRan Inc., an API member.
API's request comes just as the Center for Biological Diversity rolls out a social media campaign designed to sound an alarm on offshore hydraulic fracturing and the Interior agencies charged with regulating the process: the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. In a "social media storm" yesterday, CBD accused the agencies of prioritizing oil profits over environmental safety and public health.
CBD's lawsuit argues that the agencies routinely violate the National Environmental Policy Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and Coastal Zone Management Act by approving drilling permit applications without considering potentially unique impacts brought on by fracking. The environmental group is asking the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to bar future permitting until Interior studies specific impacts from offshore fracking (EnergyWire, Feb. 20).
CBD is also waging a legal battle against Interior officials over fracking data from Gulf of Mexico operations.
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Murkowski Opens Door to Obama Energy Plan
Apr 28, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Tuesday said she is open to an Obama administration plan for energy infrastructure and suggested officials should work with lawmakers on drafting legislation.
The Obama administration released a plan last week calling for billions of dollars in federal spending to improve pipelines, electric grids, transmission lines and other energy infrastructure.
“In many cases, the solution is new spending, adding up to potentially billions of dollars,” Murkowski said of the plan, noting that much of American energy infrastructure is owned and operated privately. “At the same time, I understand that advancing our energy infrastructure will require some federal funding, even within our constrained budgets.”
Parts of Obama’s plan would use federal funding to supplement state or private spending on infrastructure upgrades.
For example, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who tried to sell the plan in testimony before Murkowski’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, suggested the government could create a grant program for states that invest in energy reliability measures.
Murkowski said Moniz and the administration should follow up with lawmakers on legislative proposals.
“I think it’s going to be incumbent upon us — you and your team at the Department of Energy and here on the committee, and also in the House — to really figure out, how do we move forward on this, how do we make sure that this is more than just talk, because the need is so clearly there,” she said.
Murkowski’s response to the plan echoes those from her Republican counterpart on the House Energy Committee. In a statement last week, chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said, “we have already found areas of common ground where we will work together.”
The Obama administration has pitched the plan as both a way to handle the infrastructure strains of a growing American energy sector as well as a way to create jobs in a growing market.
Moniz told reporters on Monday that he expected to find some areas of common ground with congressional Republicans.
“I have no interest in having a wonderful monument on a library shelf as opposed to an implementation plan,” Moniz said on Tuesday. -
Research Cautions States Against Shortsighted Plans for EPA Carbon Rule
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Emily Holden
States implementing U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan run the risk of writing plans that limit short-term costs and impacts on the coal industry but make carbon reductions more difficult down the line, according to a new study.
The draft rule sets different carbon dioxide emission rates for each state's power sector and tasks state officials with deciding how to reach those levels.
Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions compared the effects of setting a price on carbon versus implementing different kinds of rate-based standards for electric generators. A tradable rate-based standard would set a specific amount of CO2 that plants could emit per unit of power produced. It would allow higher-emitting plants to buy credits from facilities that operate below that rate.
A tradable rate-based standard would bring down electricity prices but would not achieve long-lasting carbon reductions, according to the research, which was published in Energy Policy.
"A rate is probably going to become gradually less effective over time just because technologies improve, and whatever rate was achievable in 2030, you'll probably be able to beat it by a mile in 2050," said Billy Pizer, a faculty fellow and co-author of the research. "Other structures or design choices may not become as obsolete as fast."
Comparatively, a carbon price would continually spur reductions of the planet-warming gas over time but would cause higher wholesale electricity prices, the research finds.
In other words, "if you do something cheap now, in the future you have to rip the Band-Aid off," Pizer said. "If you're thinking about straight-on a societal trade-off, [a carbon price] probably is best. If you start thinking about the politics and the customers, you would worry about that, and you might err on the side of a tradable standard."
State officials and regulators working on Clean Power Plan compliance may want to consider the long-term effects of these different options on carbon emissions levels, especially as they consider the potential for future greenhouse gas restrictions.A warning about retrofitted coal plants
The Nicholas Institute examined requiring all generators to pay $9 per ton of CO2 they emit. The research also looked at implementing three types of rate-based standards, two of which were tradable, and would allow electric generators that are over the limit to buy credits from those that are under the limit.
Under the tradable standards, states could require coal plants and natural gas plants to reach the same rates, or they could set different targets for the two categories.
Both of the tradable standards would reduce electricity prices, but they would not maintain emissions reductions through 2050. That might "catalyze the need for future action," the paper says.
Setting the same rate for coal plants and natural gas plants would drive coal power offline and incentivize natural gas use because coal plants would have to buy credits from natural gas plants -- which on average emit half as much carbon, according to the research.
But setting different rates would incentivize the cleanest coal and gas plants to stay online while the highest-emitting facilities from each category retire. That means many coal plants would invest in retrofits to reduce emissions. Pizer says those investments would be a "waste" and become stranded assets if future carbon regulations require more cuts.
"A large fleet of retrofitted coal plants ... could substantially increase the cost of a more stringent future policy," the paper says.
"You want to think about the legacy of these policies and whether or not they're going to be making likely future policies easier or more difficult," Pizer said.
Under the fourth option, a non-tradable standard, coal plants that exceed the target rate would have to either improve efficiency, switch to lower carbon coal or retire, the paper says. That scenario would have a lasting effect on emissions reductions because many coal plants would shut down permanently, but it would be much more costly.
In any case, the research comes down on the side of a market-based approach.
"The choice to implement a market-based approach -- in one form or another -- could be the most important choice a state makes to influence costs," the report says.
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EPA Launches Rulemakings To Craft ESPS FIP, Rescind GHG Permits
Apr 28, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has formally launched a suite of new rulemakings to implement and refine its greenhouse gas (GHG) regulatory programs, including a new measure to create a closely watched federal program governing GHG emissions at existing power plants and another to rescind GHG permits that the Supreme Court effectively held are unlawful.
In addition, the agency has also launched a new rulemaking to improve its GHG reporting program.
All three of the new rulemakings, detailed in recently released Action Initiation Lists (AIL), have long been expected having been previously announced by agency officials.
Likely the most significant of the three, detailed in the AIL for February, is the agency’s planned Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) for implementing its existing source performance standards (ESPS) in states that choose not to craft their own plans or craft inadequate measures.
EPA first announced Jan. 7 that it is developing a FIP, a measure that will detail how the agency will implement the rule’s requirements in states that choose not to, and likely provide a legal test of the agency’s power to require states to comply -- especially given questions about the agency’s ability to require reductions outside coal plants’ fencelines.
Given the legal uncertainty, any FIP is likely to face legal challenges, much as EPA’s other GHG rules have.
But as the agency has moved closer to issuing the proposed FIP -- which is slated for release alongside the final ESPS -- several groups have urged EPA to use the rule to create some kind of GHG credit trading system that might ease implementation of any requirements. For example, the National Climate Coalition (NCC), an industry alliance that includes major manufacturers and clean power generators, is urging EPA to ensure that any FIP provides an adequate supply of GHG credits to ease generators’ compliance.
And the International Emissions Trading Association, a group that advocates for market-based emissions trading regimes, is urging EPA to include in the proposed FIP a national trading regime similar to a Bush-era proposal for plants’ mercury emissions.
Also listed in the February AIL, which the agency released late last Month, is a new rulemaking to rescind Clean Air Act permits for GHGs from new and modified facilities following a Supreme Court ruling that effectively barred the agency from permitting the facilities as major sources based solely on their GHG emissions.
The February AIL says the agency is crafting a proposed rule to amend its prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) program rules to allow the agency to rescind the permits issued after July 30, 1987. The agency is currently prohibited from rescinding permits issued after that date.
Last December, McCabe and enforcement chief Cynthia Giles quietly detailed the agency’s plans in separate Dec. 19 memos, with McCabe outlining plans to revise existing PSD implementing regulations to provide regulators with authority to rescind GHG-only permits and Giles providing a “no action assurance” that the agency will not enforce the GHG provisions of permits as it proceeds with the rule.
GHG-Only Permits
EPA is seeking to rescind GHG-only permits in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling last year in Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG) v. EPA, in which the court held that EPA cannot issue GHG permits under PSD for sources regulated only for GHGs. These are known as “step 2 permits” under the agency’s “tailoring rule” that raised pollutant thresholds that trigger PSD permit obligations into order to allow for regulation of GHGs, which are emitted in far higher quantities than conventional pollutants.
The agency retains the authority to require GHG permits for sources that emit more than 75,000 tons per year of GHGs and would be regulated “anyway” under PSD for conventional pollutants - “step 1” permits.
In her memo, McCabe said, “EPA intends to complete a rulemaking authorizing the rescission of Step 2 PSD permits. EPA will then rescind EPA-issued Step 2 PSD permits in response to requests from applicants that can demonstrate they are eligible for rescission.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a related ruling on remand from the high court in UARG issued an order April 10 that formally narrowed EPA’s permit authority, in line with the high court’s decision. The D.C. Circuit in its order rejects industry arguments that EPA is barred from regulating GHGs at all until the agency issues a new rule setting GHG emission thresholds. The high court in its earlier ruling suggested that EPA craft de minimus thresholds for GHGs.
Legal observers say the ruling will boost EPA in its existing efforts, such as the rescission rule, to implement the Supreme Court’s decision. However, legal uncertainty continues, because the D.C. Circuit has not yet decided another case, State of Texas, et al. v. EPA, in which Texas, Wyoming and industry groups are charging that until EPA crafts a new rule setting permit thresholds -- as the Supreme Court suggested -- the agency is legally barred from permitting GHGs.
Finally, EPA is also crafting a new rule to overhaul its GHG reporting program. According to the agency’s AIL for March, the action would “improve” the program by clarifying rule requirements, enhancing data quality to ensure that data collected is representative of industry and comparable to the US GHG inventory and streamlining requirements to improve implementation efficiency.”
The AIL says the action will also make “targeted technical amendments to municipal solid waste landfills as well as improve and streamline multiple source categories covered by the program.”
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House Panel Floats Efficiency, SPR Language for Comprehensive Bill
Apr 28, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nick Juliano
The House Energy and Commerce Committee released two new legislative drafts today on emergency oil stockpiles and energy efficiency, the next pieces of a comprehensive energy bill being assembled by committee leaders.
The Subcommittee on Energy and Power will consider the drafts at a two-part hearing Thursday. It will start with testimony from Christopher Smith, the Department of Energy's assistant secretary for fossil energy, whose portfolio includes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as well as a panel of nonprofit and private-sector experts on energy efficiency policy, according to a background memo on the hearing.
The hearing will be the second this month aimed at producing a comprehensive energy bill, which committee leaders would like to send to the House floor later this year. The SPR legislative draft will become part of a broader energy infrastructure title of the energy bill, and a broader efficiency legislative draft would become its own title of a comprehensive energy bill.
Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) have said they also intend the bill to include titles on workforce development, which was considered at a hearing last week. The final title, "energy diplomacy," could include liquefied natural gas exports, as well as better integration with energy markets in Canada and Mexico, but has not yet been explored by the committee.
Energy efficiency is likely to be in the spotlight Thursday, judging by the number of issues covered in the 54-page draft text.
The legislation encompasses numerous ideas that have spent years atop Congress' efficiency to-do list but struggled for traction amid the broader procedural gridlock that racked the chamber over the last four years, such as updating voluntary building codes or directing the federal government to reduce its energy use.
The measure also addresses industry concerns with various existing efficiency programs. For example, it repeals part of the 2005 energy law that requires the federal government to completely phase out the use of fossil fuels to heat or power new buildings, a provision that has been included in previous bipartisan efficiency bills.
The item likely to attract the most attention Thursday is a provision that would block DOE from finalizing a recently proposed efficiency standard for certain residential natural gas furnaces, a rule that the gas, furnace and homebuilding industries say would be economically harmful and ineffective. The language is similar to a stand-alone Senate bill introduced by North Dakota Republican John Hoeven that will be considered at an Energy and Natural Resources hearing the same time Thursday morning (E&E Daily, April 27).
Unlike with previous successful legislation that amended existing efficiency rules, there does not yet appear to be widespread stakeholder buy-in to change the furnace standard, which environmentalists and efficiency advocates say should have been even stronger than DOE proposed. But supporters of the legislation are optimistic that they can attract more supporters to their cause.
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