Preview Newsletter
ACC AM May 20
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(ACC Mentioned) Ohio Ethane Cracker Expected to Begin Production in 2020
May 19, 2015 | NGI Shale Daily
By Jamison Cocklin
If it decides to make the investment and build an ethane cracker in Belmont County, OH, Thailand's PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) pcl said earlier this week that it plans to begin commercial production at the facility by 2020. The petrochemical subsidiary of Thailand's state-owned oil and gas company, PTT pcl, announced in April plans to... -
(ACC Mentioned) Flame Retardants May Be Coming Off Of Furniture, But They're Still In Your TV Sets
May 19, 2015 | The Guardian (UK)
By Amy Westervelt
“When’s the last time you watched TV by candlelight?” asks Arlene Blum, founder of the Green Science Policy Institute. Blum questions the logic of television sets being coated in chemicals that are either known health hazards or under-researched. The voluntary standard governing the use of flame-retardant chemicals ... -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Delayed EU Regulation of Toxic Chemicals
May 20, 2015 | EU Observer
By Nikolaj Nielsen
A report out on Wednesday (20 May) shows how industry lobbied EU institutions to kill regulation on possible toxic chemicals used in everyday products. Drafted by Brussels-based Corporate Europe Observatory and by French journalist Stephane Horel, it shows how big chemical trade associations and firms managed to prevent restrictions... -
(ACC Mentioned) Minn. Ban on Fire Retardants Would Be Toughest in USA
May 19, 2015 | Firehouse
By Abby Simons
Minnesota legislators are on the verge of approving the nation's most restrictive use of flame-retardant chemicals in furniture and an array of household items such as textiles, mattresses and children's products. State firefighters have been pushing for legislation that would phase out the use of 10 such chemicals, saying they... -
(ACC Mentioned) Nature Notes: Rona Ditches Neonics As Bee Deaths Rise
May 19, 2015 | Now Toronto
By Adria Vasil
Just as a new survey out of the U.S. -reported a spike in bee deaths, Rona Canada announced that most of its garden centre plants, some 70 per cent, are now free of bee-harming neonicotinoid pesticides. More than 40 per cent of American honeybee colonies died over the last year, according to a survey conducted by a... -
(ACC Mentioned) Can Memory Foam Cause Cancer? All About Polymers the Basic Component of All Synthetic Foam
May 19, 2015 | Old Bed Guy
By Marshall Coyle
If you care to know what is in your synthetic foam, this is easier to read than it first looks. The following is from the American Chemical Council and makes plain the nature of the chemicals you may be sleeping on. Deciding whether or not you want to is another story. Synthetic foams can be made to hard or soft, weak... -
US Agency Addresses Data Gaps In Consumer Nano Exposure
May 20, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Significant data gaps exist in understanding and characterising human exposure to nanomaterials in consumer products, the head of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has told Congress. The federal government has spent billions of dollars in research to expand the use of nanomaterials, but “there is a... -
Test Your Sun Safety Knowledge: EWG Tackles Five Popular Myths
May 19, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Sonya Lunder
I love this time of year. After a long, cold winter, how can you resist the sun when it beckons you to go outside? Before you leave the house, though, be sure to reduce your risk of skin damage. Cover up with a shirt, put on sunglasses and check the UV index to plan events around the sun. Early morning or late afternoon are the best times ... -
Court Consolidates Petroleum Catalyst Suit With Fight Over EPA DSW Rule
May 19, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
A federal appeals court has consolidated litigation from 2009 contesting EPA's treatment of spent petroleum refinery catalysts under a 2008 waste rule with newly filed litigation by industry and environmentalists challenging the agency's recently finalized Definition of Solid Waste (DSW) rule governing hazardous waste recycling. -
RFA Honored By Transcaer For Ethanol Education Safety Initiatives
May 19, 2015 | Ethanol Producer Magazine
The Renewable Fuels Association was recently awarded the 2014 Transcaer Achievement Award. This is the third year in a row that RFA has been awarded this honor as it continues working to ensure first responders have the proper training and resources to respond to ethanol-related emergencies. According to Transcaer the award is given to ... -
Oil Pipeline Spills About 21,000 Gallons Off California Coast
May 19, 2015 | AP (in TIME)
The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that about 21,000 gallons of oil spilled into the ocean when a pipeline broke on the central California coast. Coast Guard Petty Officer Andrea Anderson says Tuesday’s pipeline break has created an oil slick stretching for about 4 miles of beach and about 50 yards into the ocean. -
(ACC Mentioned) Eastman Chemical, Trade Group Sue EPA Over Air Rule for Off-Site Waste, Recovery
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A Tennessee chemical company and an industry trade group are challenging an Environmental Protection Agency rule that set more stringent toxic air pollutant controls for facilities that handle waste, used oil and used solvents (Am. Chemistry Council v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1146, 5/18/15; Eastman Chemical Co. v. EPA, D.C. Cir... -
House Panel Releases Bill to Expedite LNG Export Reviews, Cross-Border Projects
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Draft legislation released by a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee would require the Energy Department to expedite its approval process for liquefied natural gas export projects. The bill, which will be incorporated into a broad bill being developed by the full committee, would also stipulate that no presidential permit... -
Manchin Backs Crude Export Ban Repeal Bill Introduced by Heitkamp
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who sits on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is co-sponsoring a bill to lift the ban on the export of domestic crude oil, the first time the lawmaker has come out in favor of lifting the trade prohibition, Jonathan Kott, a spokesman for the senator, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail. -
Obama Administration Opposes Senate Offshore Drilling Bills, Official Testifies
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The Obama administration opposes a trio of bills that would require oil and gas lease sales offshore Alaska, in the South Atlantic and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, an Interior Department official said. The bills (S. 1278, S. 1276, S. 1279), which also would increase the number of states allowed to receive a share of federal revenues from energy... -
Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Local Fracking Restrictions
May 19, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill to block local ordinances against hydraulic fracturing. The new law comes in response to a resolution banning fracking in the Texas town of Denton, which voters passed last November. The law “preempts regulation of oil and gas activity at the city level and resides that duty with the... -
Industry Lawsuit Charges Fracking Rule Makes Little or No Sense, Costs Too Much
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
The new federal regulations for oil and gas wells using hydraulic fracturing on federal lands violate federal law because they are impractical and issued through a series of violations of federal procedures, two industry associations told a court in support of their petition to block the regulations (Indep. Petroleum Ass'n of Am... -
Shale Gas Set to Pummel Another Market As LNG Plants Go Online in United States
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Isis Almeida
The U.S. is about to change the global natural gas market forever. When the first tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from shale fields leaves the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana in December, it will turn consumers into traders with more bargaining power. That will transform a market dominated by long-term contracts into one where spot trading... -
Shell Defends Plans to Drill in Arctic, Citing New Tests, Quick-Response System
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rakteem Katakey and Fred Pals
Royal Dutch Shell Plc defended its planned return to Arctic drilling, saying new spill-containment systems would prevent a disaster in the event of an oil leak. Shell has carried out tests in an environment that replicates Arctic conditions, Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden said May 19 at a shareholder meeting in The Hague. -
Greens Cry Foul Over Shell’s Arctic Safety Audit
May 19, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor
Shell submitted to a third-party safety audit as part of what President Barack Obama described as unprecedented hurdles the oil giant had to overcome to restart its troubled Arctic drilling operations — but the results of that review remain under wraps, much to environmentalists’ frustration. The independent audit was a key recommendation of... -
California Oil Regulators Could Lose Power Over Aquifer Mess
May 19, 2015 | SF Gate
By David R. Baker
Under fire for letting petroleum companies pump wastewater into aquifers, California oil-field regulators could see some of their responsibilities taken away — and handed to other agencies. State Sen. Fran Pavley on Tuesday proposed launching an audit of California’s Divison of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources to see whether some of its... -
$35.4 Billion Energy, Water Bill Approved By Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee voted May 19 to approve a $35.4 billion fiscal year 2016 energy and water appropriations bill, clearing the way for consideration by the full committee May 21. The legislation would appropriate nearly $30 billion for the Department of Energy, $5.5 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and $1.1 billion for the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation, Sen. Lamar AlexanderA Senate Appropriations subcommittee voted May 19 to approve a $35.4 billion fiscal year 2016 energy and water appropriations bill, clearing the way for consideration by the full committee May 21. The legislation would appropriate nearly $30 billion for the Department of Energy, $5.5 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and... -
House Panel Rolls Out 'Energy Diplomacy' Draft
May 19, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
House Republicans today released draft legislation that aims to expedite the permitting of major cross-border energy projects and shipments of liquefied natural gas. The bill, which the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power will discuss Thursday and during a June 2 hearing, will guide the "energy diplomacy" title of the House's... -
Senate Subpanel Approves Energy And Water Bill
May 19, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Daniel Bush
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee today passed by voice vote an energy and water spending bill that would boost funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, basic energy research and emergency drought relief efforts in the West. The bill does not include funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository... -
Splits Over Revenue Sharing Emerge In Energy Bill Supply Hearing
May 20, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Nick Juliano
It has been a long-standing goal of Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to open up more of the nation's coastline to oil and natural gas drilling and to give states a greater share of the revenues associated with offshore energy production, and a wide-ranging bill being assembled in her committee may be one avenue to do so. -
More Time Needed to Analyze Electric Grid Provisions in House Bill, FERC, NERC Say
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corp. said they need more than three to four months to provide reliability analyses for rules that affect electricity reliability, as a House subcommittee has proposed in draft legislation. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy... -
California, 11 Other U.S. States, Foreign Jurisdictions Sign Pact on Climate Change
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a pact with leaders from 11 other state and provincial governments agreeing to cut emissions of greenhouse gases 80 percent to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 or achieve a per capita annual emissions goal of less than two metric tons by the same date. -
As EPA Nears Final Decision On Ozone NAAQS, Groups Step Up Lobbying
May 19, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
As EPA nears a final decision on whether to revise its ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) and send the rule to the White House for pre-publication review, groups representing industries, advocates and others are stepping up their lobbying of agency officials to try and sway the rule to their preferred outcome. -
Trucks Powered by Natural Gas: Help or Hindrance to Emissions-Reduction Efforts?
May 19, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Erica E. Phillips
As a strengthening U.S. economy has boosted freight volumes, more commercial trucks are taking to the open road—all of them subject to new, stricter federal emissions standards. So, are trucks powered by natural gas instead of diesel an effective way to reduce emissions? A new study urges caution until methane emissions in the “well... -
Western Governors Group Endorses House Legislative Approach to Coal Ash Regulation
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Western Governors’ Association has thrown its weight behind Rep. David McKinley's (R-W.Va.) legislation (H.R. 1734) that would enable states to draft, implement and enforce their own permitting programs for coal ash management and disposal. In a letter to House and Senate leadership, Gov. Brian Sandoval ... -
Hearing on Waters of U.S. Rule, Bill Focuses On EPA Authority to Interpret Jurisdiction
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The question of whether the Environmental Protection Agency or Congress has the authority to interpret the geographic scope of Clean Water Act protections was debated at a hearing before a Senate panel May 19 as the Obama administration prepares to release its major rule clarifying the regulatory reach of the law. -
Barrasso Sharply Questions State Dept. Nominee On Climate Writings
May 20, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Brittany Patterson
Jennifer Ann Haverkamp faced a barrage of hostile questions from a top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her confirmation hearing yesterday. Following a long career in both government and nonprofit environmental policy work, Haverkamp was nominated by ... -
Inhofe Seeks GAO Investigation Of EPA's Campaign To Promote CWA Rule
May 19, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the environment panel, is asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to launch an investigation into EPA's campaign to promote support for its imminent Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, citing reports that industry officials believe the push might have violated federal lobbying laws. -
Groups Jockeying To Shape EPA Water Rule
May 20, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
More than 100 advocates representing dozens of industry groups, companies and environmental organizations are flocking to the White House in a last-ditch effort to influence controversial regulations that would redefine the reach of the federal government’s water pollution enforcement. -
Whitehouse to Unveil Carbon Fee Bill in June With Hopes of Boosting Climate Debate
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), one of the leading climate change action advocates in the Senate, will announce carbon fee legislation during a June 10 event at the American Enterprise Institute with the aim of spurring a “real debate” on how to address climate change, he said in a May 18 floor speech. -
Pennsylvania Governor Seeks Voluntary Steps By Railroads to Boost Oil Shipment Safety
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
The railroad companies CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp. should carry out the voluntary safety initiatives that Midwest operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) has taken for crude-by-rail shipments, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) said in public letters to the two companies May 19. -
Lawsuit by Small Railroads Consolidated With Oil Company Case on Crude-by-Rail Rule
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
With 49 days left to sue the Transportation Department over its final rule governing movement of flammable liquids by rail, the courts are a flurry with actions over crude-by-rail issues. Smaller railroad companies filed a suit against the final rule, and the suit was consolidated May 18 with a challenge by oil companies. -
Bill Would Limit Crude Oil Volatility for Rail Service
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
ep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) introduced May 15 a bill to limit the volatility of crude oil shipped interstate by rail. The bill, H.R. 2379, would temporarily limit the Reid Vapor Pressure of crude oil to 8.5 pounds per square inch before being moved by rail. That limit would remain in effect until the Transportation Department determined an appropriate national...
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(ACC Mentioned) Ohio Ethane Cracker Expected to Begin Production in 2020
May 19, 2015 | NGI Shale Daily
By Jamison Cocklin
If it decides to make the investment and build an ethane cracker in Belmont County, OH, Thailand's PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC) pcl said earlier this week that it plans to begin commercial production at the facility by 2020.
The petrochemical subsidiary of Thailand's state-owned oil and gas company, PTT pcl, announced in April plans to partner with Japan's Marubeni Corp. to construct the ethane cracker in southeast Ohio at the heart of the Utica Shale and near the Marcellus Shale (see Shale Daily, April 23). At the time, the companies said no final investment decision would be made until 2016. Although the company said it had been searching for a location in the Appalachian Basin for nearly two years, it has not yet disclosed the site.
But in its first quarter earnings report the company said it is planning for a one million tonne facility that would cost nearly $6 billion to complete. PTTGC said it is also seeking a third partner for the venture with Marubeni Corp. to help finance the project. Company officials added that Marubeni Corp., a global services company with business in various sectors including food, textiles, chemicals and energy, would help PTTGC "penetrate the North American market."
Management said the company's board of directors has already approved the project. It expects to sign an agreement to pursue the facility with Marubeni Corp. and a third partner later this year. The cracker would convert locally sourced ethane from the Marcellus and Utica shales into ethylene and polyethylene, which are key building blocks for plastics.
Before any final investment decision is made, the company said, a one-year study would be conducted to look into infrastructure availability, state and federal government tax incentives and labor costs, among other things.
As a result of the spread between the price of oil and natural gas, the U.S. plastics industry is expected to grow rapidly over the next decade, according to a recently released report by the American Chemistry Council (see Shale Daily, May 18).
Asian and European plastics producers typically use an oil-based feedstock rather than natural gas-based feedstocks. In its earnings release, PTTGC said the project could have cost advantages as a result and noted that the Ohio site is near regions with a "high level of demand for petrochemical products."
The company is also targeting up to a 35% increase in revenue from ethylene production over the next seven years. PTTGC's ethane cracker is among four others that have been announced for Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania (see Shale Daily, May 2, 2014; Nov. 14, 2013; Jan. 19, 2012; June 7, 2011). None have broken ground, and Odebrecht SA said in April that it was putting its plans for a cracker in West Virginia on hold pending further project analysis amid the commodities price downturn.
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(ACC Mentioned) Flame Retardants May Be Coming Off Of Furniture, But They're Still In Your TV Sets
May 19, 2015 | The Guardian (UK)
By Amy Westervelt
“When’s the last time you watched TV by candlelight?” asks Arlene Blum, founder of the Green Science Policy Institute. Blum questions the logic of television sets being coated in chemicals that are either known health hazards or under-researched.
The voluntary standard governing the use of flame-retardant chemicals in electronics in the US, known as UL-94, is met by adding the chemicals not only to internal components but also to plastic outer casings, including those of TVs. Based on what’s called a “candle-flame standard,” it requires that items not ignite when they come into contact with a candle flame. Blum, a vocal opponent of flame-retardant chemicals in consumer products, thinks using flame retardants on the outer casings of electronics is unnecessary and puts consumers’ health at risk.
Consumers are often unaware of all the flame-retardant chemicals in and on electronics. While flaming laptops and even iPods – and recalls from manufacturers such as Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Toshiba and, more recently, Sony over fire safety fears – might help make the case for coating circuit boards with flame retardants, fierce debate is raging over whether they are necessary on the external plastic casings of items like televisions, stereos, computers, video game consoles and cellphones.While public health advocates are fighting to reduce the use of flame retardants in electronics, flame retardant manufacturers routinely recommend international standards that would increase use of the chemicals across all types of electronic products.
One such standard was recently defeated by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), an international industry standards group that sets voluntary standards for the electronics industry. But another is up for a vote this summer by both the IEC and the European standards commission (CENELEC). If it passes, Green Science Policy Institute research estimates it could increase the use of flame retardants in electronics by hundreds of thousands of tons. Companies are not required to disclose which chemical flame retardants they use, or how much, so it’s unclear how much is used in electronics today. But 816m pounds (roughly 370,000 metric tons) of the stuff is sold in the US annually, for use primarily in the construction, electronics, automotive and aerospace industries.
“We think coating plastic casings is a completely unnecessary use of these chemicals, and it’s one that directly impacts consumers,” says Simona Balan, who heads the electronics standards initiatives for the Green Science Policy Institute.
From 2002 to 2013, the flame retardants most commonly used in electronics, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), were banned or phased out in Europe and the US after researchers linked the compounds to neurotoxic effects and hormone disruption. Because electronics manufacturers do not disclose which flame retardants they use, scientists have only recently ferretted out the chemicals that have replaced PBDEs by analyzing currently available electronics.
Ana María Ballesteros-Gómez, an analytical environmental chemist at VU University Amsterdam, studied 13 products made since the phaseout and found one common flame-retardant chemical in all of them: a new, triazine-based brominated flame retardant that appears to have replaced polybrominated flame retardants. Although neither the US nor the European Union have declared this new compound toxic, researchers caution that it is very similar in structure to PBDEs and thus warrants further study. Blum has been pushing for regulation of the entire class of brominated flame retardants to avoid this sort of substitution of one, banned chemical, with another of similar structure that likely carries similar health risks. Advertisement
Two of the more commonly used flame retardants – tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) and tetrachlorobisphenol A (TCBPA), chemical cousins to bisphenol A (BPA) – are used internally on circuit boards and externally on plastic casings, and were recently deemed to be obesogens – which disrupt endocrines and promote obesity – by University of Houston researchers.
According to the study, about 150,000 tons of TBBPA and 10,000 tons of TCBPA are produced every year. Study author Maria Bondesson found that zebra fish exposed to doses of the chemicals for eight days developed more fat cells and were chubbier than those not exposed, despite a high-cholesterol diet for both groups. The dosed fish also remained fatter a month after exposure.
While the fish were exposed to higher doses than humans commonly would be, Bondesson, a research assistant professor of biology and biochemistry, said the size of the dosage was balanced out by the exposure time.
According to the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, however, TBBPA have no health impacts on humans. Its fact sheet on the chemical states: “European Union studies twice have shown that exposure to TBBPA from consumer products is insignificant, or not detectable, depending on the application.”
Roughly a dozen flame-retardant chemicals are commonly used in electronics, according to the American Chemical Society. According to the North American Flame Retardant Alliance, part of the American Chemistry Council, all of them are safe.
“Consumers should know that flame retardants, like other chemicals, are subject to review by the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory bodies for safety,” the Alliance wrote in a recent statement about proposals to reduce the use of flame-retardant chemicals in various products.
“Flame retardants have been scientifically proven to help stop or slow the spread of fire, and they help save lives. NAFRA believes in strengthening fire safety and supports the use of flame retardants in those products where the chemistries can provide an important, added layer of protection.”
But while the chemicals are evaluated for safety, electronics manufacturers do not have to disclose which chemicals they use or how much of any one chemical, which public health advocates say makes it difficult to tell whether the chemicals are being used according to safety limits. Both the European Union and the US have regulations governing materials used in the components of electronics, but there’s currently very little regulation of any chemicals coating those components. Since the internal circuit boards of electronic devices pose a real fire danger, there’s little desire within the industry to reduce the amount used, even on external casings.
With little government or corporate incentive, Blum and Balan are focusing on two issues: defeating standards that would require the use of more flame-retardant chemicals, and raising consumer awareness – both of which are likely to be long battles.
“It took years to develop consumer awareness around flame retardants in furniture, and I don’t think most people know now that their TV cases contain flame retardants, too,” Blum says.
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Delayed EU Regulation of Toxic Chemicals
May 20, 2015 | EU Observer
By Nikolaj Nielsen
A report out on Wednesday (20 May) shows how industry lobbied EU institutions to kill regulation on possible toxic chemicals used in everyday products.
Drafted by Brussels-based Corporate Europe Observatory and by French journalist Stephane Horel, it shows how big chemical trade associations and firms managed to prevent restrictions from being imposed on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).
EDCs, which can interfere with hormonal systems, are often found in pesticides, plastics, cosmetics, computers, and construction materials.
The EU banned an EDC known as bisphenol A (BPA) from being used in baby bottles in 2011 because of the risks.
Nina Holland, CEO campaigner and co-author of the report, said they obtained hundreds of documents released by the European Commission following freedom of information requests.
“[It] show unambiguously how science is being manipulated to defend vested interests, manufacture doubt and delay a pioneering regulation", she said.
The affair kicked off in 2009 when the DG Environment at the European Commission launched an independent study to probe EDC toxicology on humans.
The resulting report, which took a critical view on EDCs, prompted the DG to start laying the groundwork for future EU-wide rules.
The conclusions of the report and the DG’s moves provoked attacks in 2012 from the US-based chemical corporations, British and German authorities, and from inside the commission itself.
The director-general of DG Sanco, the commission's health and safety department, headed at the time by Paola Testori Coggi, is said to have sidelined DG Environment and initiated another study by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) which came out with different conclusions.
One EFSA scientist, in an email, describes his embarrassment over the new report on EDCs because it contradicted another report by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
“It is almost embarrassing to compare our current draft report with the WHO-UNEP report. The issues the WHO-UNEP report highlight and takes out as being specific for [endocrine disruptors], we in our report are trying to down-play or even avoid,” notes the email.
The WHO-UNEP report, published in early 2013, concluded that EDCs were a “global threat that needs to be resolved”.
For its part, the European Parliament had by then issued its own report, which backed the conclusions originally obtained by DG Environment.
The industry, including chemical giant Bayer, initiated delay tactics in late 2013 by requesting the European Commission to conduct a 12-month impact assessment.
They lobbied DG Sanco, Enterprise and Trade, and also the commission’s secretary general.
Next they targeted the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
On the US side, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), CropLife America (CLA), the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, lobbied against imposing any further regulatory restrictions on the chemicals in TTIP.
A German toxicologist along with around 50 scientists also opposed the DG Environment survey on EDCs in a letter written to the commission’s chief scientific adviser Anne Glover in June 2013.
Around 30 of the signatories had ties to the industry. Three of them – also with industry ties - worked at EFSA.
A rebuttal published in Endocrine Society journal and signed by over 100 scientists described the German letter as “a profound disservice” to public health.
But around a month after receiving the German letter, Catherine Day, the EU commission's secretary general, decided an impact assessment study was needed.
“With this decision to launch an impact assessment, the secretary general had single-handedly thrown a monkey wrench in DG Environment’s work on EDCs,” notes the CEO paper.
The report notes that, as a result, the scientific criteria to define EDCs will not be ready before 2017.
“That is four years after the legal deadline set by the [EU] parliament.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Minn. Ban on Fire Retardants Would Be Toughest in USA
May 19, 2015 | Firehouse
By Abby Simons
Minnesota legislators are on the verge of approving the nation's most restrictive use of flame-retardant chemicals in furniture and an array of household items such as textiles, mattresses and children's products.
State firefighters have been pushing for legislation that would phase out the use of 10 such chemicals, saying they are ineffective in slowing the spread of fire and contain toxins that are sickening responders. Monday's compromise, reached among the firefighters, the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and chemical companies, would phase out the manufacture and sale of four commonly used flame retardants.
The deal comes a week to the day after firefighters filled hallways at the Capitol decrying what they called the "slow death" of the original bill, which had sailed through the Senate but had not even gotten a hearing in the House.
Minnesota Professional Fire Fighters union President Chris Parsons expressed mixed emotions about Monday's compromise.
"We are leaving off the list six carcinogenic flame retardants, so in that regards I'm not pleased about it," said Parsons, a St. Paul fire captain. "But does it move the conversation further, does it get us closer to our goal? Yes. In the meantime will firefighters continue to be exposed? That I'm not happy about."
Susan Shaw, director and founder of the Marine & Environmental Research Institute, testified before a House Committee on Monday that "firefighters inhale, ingest, and absorb hundreds of toxic, carcinogenic chemicals during every phase of firefighting -- suppression, knockdown/ventilation, and cleanup."
A professor at the State University of New York at Albany, Shaw told the panel that young firefighters are developing aggressive cancers at an earlier age than the general population. "Cancer is a looming personal catastrophe for each and every firefighter," she said.
The initial 10-chemical ban was opposed by the Chamber, the American Chemistry Council and the North American Flame Retardant Alliance, a coalition that said the proposed ban was too broad. Similar legislation to ban fire retardants has passed in Oregon, Maine and Vermont, but was narrower in scope.
"It's important to remember that when you start talking about chemical regulation and specifically flame retardants, that one size does not fit all." Tony Kwilas, director of environmental policy at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, told the panel.
Robert Simon, vice president of chemical products and technology for the American Chemistry Council, points to studies that showed flame retardants did not make smoke more toxic, and prove that flame retardants slowed the spread of fire by minutes. Regardless of whether flame retardants are present, he said, smoke and other fire byproducts are naturally dangerous.
The House Commerce and Regulatory Reform Committee, after hearing Monday's testimony, passed the modified bill, which is expected to be approved by the full House and Senate.
Cancer concerns
Firefighters have been arguing nationally that flame retardants, while initially thought to hold great promise for slowing the spread of deadly fires, have failed to prove effective while, they contend, contributing to their profession's increased cancer rates.
Nationwide, cancer attributes for half of line-of-duty deaths among professional firefighters. St. Paul fire Capt. Steve Shapira, who has served 17 years, last year was diagnosed at 46 with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
"Cancer has changed my entire world," said Shapira, a married father who is now on sick leave and is battling with the city of St. Paul to receive workers' compensation. "Not one aspect has not been affected."
Rep. Jeff Howe, R-Rockville, a former firefighter who sponsored the bill, said negotiations were a drawn-out debate that ultimately focused on which chemicals were most dangerous, and which are still in use.
"I don't think anybody's really happy in this group, which probably means it's close to pretty good legislation, and I think it's as far as we can get this time," Howe said.
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(ACC Mentioned) Nature Notes: Rona Ditches Neonics As Bee Deaths Rise
May 19, 2015 | Now Toronto
By Adria Vasil
Just as a new survey out of the U.S. -reported a spike in bee deaths, Rona Canada announced that most of its garden centre plants, some 70 per cent, are now free of bee-harming neonicotinoid pesticides.
More than 40 per cent of American honeybee colonies died over the last year, according to a survey conducted by a bee partnership that includes the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s the second-highest die-off in nine years, and took analysts by surprise -because of the high level of summer mortality.
The causes are still being hotly debated, but garden centres are moving ahead with plans to purge neonic pesticides linked to weakening bee -immune systems and bee fatalities. Home Depot now requires neonic labelling, while Lowe’s says it’ll be neonic-free by 2019.
BPA LABELLED TOXIC IN CALIFORNIA?
California has officially added BPA to its list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity in women. Are warning labels on tin cans and other products containing BPA -imminent?
California actually tried to add BPA to its Proposition 65 list as a developmental toxin back in 2013, but a lawsuit (followed by an appeal) by a coalition of chemical companies has tied that move up in the courts.
Under Prop 65, chemicals known to the state to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm have to come with a warning label. You might spot warnings on freshly paved parking lots, in tattoo parlours and on an -array of consumer goods. Fail to warn consumers and the attorney general can sue you.
However, before that happens with BPA, experts have to determine at what level the chemical is considered to cause reproductive harm to women. If the level in a product falls below a predetermined mark, warning labels don’t have to be posted.
The American Chemistry Council (ACA) says California’s latest decision “is not supported by the extensive scientific record” and points to a recent decision by the European Food Safety Authority that deemed BPA’s use at current levels in consumer goods safe.
The ACA, however, fails to mention that the European Chemical Agency’s Risk Assessment Committee pushed to have BPA regulations toughened up. And as of January, France actually outlawed BPA from all containers and utensils that come in direct food contact.
In both the U.S. and Canada, BPA has been banned from baby bottles and infant formula containers, but it’s still commonly used in polycarbonate plastic, receipts, dental sealants, can linings and glass jar lids.
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May 19, 2015 | Old Bed Guy
By Marshall Coyle
If you care to know what is in your synthetic foam, this is easier to read than it first looks.
The following is from the American Chemical Council and makes plain the nature of the chemicals you may be sleeping on. Deciding whether or not you want to is another story. Synthetic foams can be made to hard or soft, weak or strong, and, in fact a product that can resemble a block of wood as easily as it can be an ethereal foam. The people who wrote this below, work for the companies that sell it for furniture, pillows, mattresses and a myriad of other uses. What you read is the “good” aspects of chemical based foam. And as you will read, the basic stock that their chemicals alter into various new products are “long chain polymers”. They can use whatever “oil” costs the least. It can be petroleum from the arctic circle, or coal from Kentucky, and even, to a small degree, oil from plants such as peanut or soy oil. The finished product can be the same regardless of the original oil used in the process.
There are thousands of pages of health studies dealing with the basic chemicals and the finished products. Most of the studies have been done on rodents, and few have been done for inhaled versions of the chemicals. There are differing opinions about almost everything. A diligent searcher can find where the materials used in foams such as Tempurpedic, or unbranded memory foam are most damaging when a worker is exposed to the liquid version. Few tests involve humans or contact through the air. Most of the chemicals appear to be able to damage DNA and possibly alter future generations through genetic change. The government is very inactive when dealing with these chemicals in their processed form, preferring to focus on the factory place.
The science looking for serious health issues from inhaling the fumes outgassing from these foams appears to recognize the danger, but as the dollars being made by the chemical companies, the oil companies, and both the foam makers and the mattress assemblers are almost unimaginably large, finger pointing today appears to be where tobacco was fifty years ago. Anyone with some money can still give himself cancer by smoking despite years of government intervention and billion dollar legal settlements. At this point in history, you can take your chances with synthetic foams, or sleep without worries on natural latex and other mostly chemical-free padding.
MY OPINION FOR SOME YEARS IS THAT THE MOST TOXIC AND NOXIOUS OF THE CHEMICALS IN MOST MEMORY FOAM CAN KILL YOU. MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE BOUGHT MEMORY FOAM AND HAVE HAD TO DISCARD NEARLY NEW MATTRESSES BECAUSE OF THE FUMES MAY DIE FROM OLD AGE, BUT I BELIEVE THAT FOR TOO MANY,THAT IS WISHFUL THINKING.
ALL I HAVE IS CIRCUMSTANTIAL PROOF, AND KNOWLEDGE OF LAWS PASSED BY OTHER NATIONS SUCH AS AUSTRALIA THAT PROTECT THEIR CITIZENS FROM POSSIBLE CHEMICAL HARM MUCH MORE CAREFULLY THAN DOES THE USA. I ALSO RECOGNIZE THAT MOST PEOPLE WILL NOT DIE FROM SLEEPING ON COMMON MEMORY FOAM, BUT MANY WILL GET ILLNESSES IN THEIR LUNGS, TRACHEA, MOUTH, AND ON THEIR TONGUES. UNKNOWN BUT SERIOUSLY BEING RESEARCHED ARE GENETIC CHANGES FROM THE CHEMICALS USED, AND IN THE HYDROCARBON OILS AND GASES THAT ARE COMBINED TO MAKE THE FOAM. CHANGES CAN BE PRODUCED BY EXPOSING RATS, BUT NO LONG TERM DEFINITIVE EXPERIMENTS HAVE YET BEEN UNDERTAKEN ON HUMANS.
I DO NOT HAVE A DEFINITIVE ANSWER, BUT DO NOT ASK ME TO RECOMMEND ANY FOAM OR ANY OTHER PRODUCT THAT I BELIEVE EXPOSES YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN TO CHEMICAL FUMES.
NOW, YOU SHOULD READ THIS FOAM LECTURE, AND IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT YOUR FUTURE ENOUGH TO DO A BIT OF SEARCHING, SEARCH THE CHEMICALS NAMED BELOW AND ADD THE WORDS MEMORY FOAM AFTER THE NAME OF THE CHEMICAL. DO IT IN BING AS WELL AS GOOGLE. THOUSANDS OF WEBSITES WILL APPEAR AND FEW WILL HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR THE FOAM INDUSTRY AND FOR MY READERS WHO ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE PLANET, CONSIDER THE FACT THAT SYNTHETIC FOAMS CAN SURVIVE FOR HUNDRED OR THOUSANDS OF YEARS IN A LANDFILL WITHOUT BIODEGRADING. WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SLEEPING ON SHOULD RETURN TO THE EARTH IN A MATTER OF MONTHS.The Basics: Polymer Definition and Properties
The Structure of Polymers
Molecular Arrangement of Polymers
Characteristics of Polymers
Solid Waste ManagementIf you’re after basic information on plastic materials, this is the place to find it. Here you’ll learn the definition and properties of polymers, another name for plastics.
The simplest definition of a polymer is a useful chemical made of many repeating units. A polymer can be a three dimensional network (think of the repeating units linked together left and right, front and back, up and down) or two-dimensional network (think of the repeating units linked together left, right, up, and down in a sheet) or a one-dimensional network (think of the repeating units linked left and right in a chain). Each repeating unit is the “-mer” or basic unit with “poly-mer” meaning many repeating units. Repeating units are often made of carbon and hydrogen and sometimes oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, chlorine, fluorine, phosphorous, and silicon. To make the chain, many links or “-mers” are chemically hooked or polymerized together. Linking countless strips of construction paper together to make paper garlands or hooking together hundreds of paper clips to form chains, or stringing beads helps visualize polymers. Polymers occur in nature and can be made to serve specific needs. Manufactured polymers can be three-dimensional networks that do not melt once formed. Such networks are called THERMOSET polymers. Epoxy resins used in two-part adhesives are thermoset plastics. Manufactured polymers can also be one-dimensional chains that can be melted. These chains are THERMOPLASTIC polymers and are also called LINEAR polymers. Plastic bottles, films, cups, and fibers are thermoplastic plastics.
Polymers abound in nature. The ultimate natural polymers are the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) that define life. Spider silk, hair, and horn are protein polymers. Starch can be a polymer as is cellulose in wood. Rubber tree latex and cellulose have been used as raw material to make manufactured polymeric rubber and plastics. The first synthetic manufactured plastic was Bakelite, created in 1909 for telephone casing and electrical components. The first manufactured polymeric fiber was Rayon, from cellulose, in 1910. Nylon was invented in 1935 while pursuing a synthetic spider silk.
The Structure of Polymers
Many common classes of polymers are composed of hydrocarbons, compounds of carbon and hydrogen. These polymers are specifically made of carbon atoms bonded together, one to the next, into long chains that are called the backbone of the polymer. Because of the nature of carbon, one or more other atoms can be attached to each carbon atom in the backbone. There are polymers that contain only carbon and hydrogen atoms. Polyethylene, polypropylene, polybutylene, polystyrene and polymethylpentene are examples of these. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) has chlorine attached to the all-carbon backbone. Teflon has fluorine attached to the all-carbon backbone.
Other common manufactured polymers have backbones that include elements other than carbon. Nylons contain nitrogen atoms in the repeat unit backbone. Polyesters and polycarbonates contain oxygen in the backbone. There are also some polymers that, instead of having a carbon backbone, have a silicon or phosphorous backbone. These are considered inorganic polymers. One of the more famous silicon-based polymers is Silly Putty®.
Molecular Arrangement of Polymers
Think of how spaghetti noodles look on a plate. These are similar to how linear polymers can be arranged if they lack specific order, or are amorphous. Controlling the polymerization process and quenching molten polymers can result in amorphous organization. An amorphous arrangement of molecules has no long-range order or form in which the polymer chains arrange themselves. Amorphous polymers are generally transparent. This is an important characteristic for many applications such as food wrap, plastic windows, headlight lenses and contact lenses.
Obviously not all polymers are transparent. The polymer chains in objects that are translucent and opaque may be in a crystalline arrangement. By definition, a crystalline arrangement has atoms, ions, or in this case, molecules arranged in distinct patterns. You generally think of crystalline structures in table salt and gemstones, but they can occur in plastics. Just as quenching can produce amorphous arrangements, processing can control the degree of crystallinity for those polymers that are able to crystallize. Some polymers are designed to never be able to crystallize. Others are designed to be able to be crystallized. The higher the degree of crystallinity, generally, the less light can pass through the polymer. Therefore, the degree of translucence or opaqueness of the polymer can be directly affected by its crystallinity. Crystallinity creates benefits in strength, stiffness, chemical resistance, and stability.
Scientists and engineers are always producing more useful materials by manipulating the molecular structure that affects the final polymer produced. Manufacturers and processors introduce various fillers, reinforcements and additives into the base polymers, expanding product possibilities.
Characteristics of Polymers
The majority of manufactured polymers are thermoplastic, meaning that once the polymer is formed it can be heated and reformed over and over again. This property allows for easy processing and facilitates recycling. The other group, the thermosets, cannot be remelted. Once these polymers are formed, reheating will cause the material to ultimately degrade, but not melt.
Every polymer has very distinct characteristics, but most polymers have the following general attributes.
Polymers can be very resistant to chemicals. Consider all the cleaning fluids in your home that are packaged in plastic. Reading the warning labels that describe what happens when the chemical comes in contact with skin or eyes or is ingested will emphasize the need for chemical resistance in the plastic packaging. While solvents easily dissolve some plastics, other plastics provide safe, non-breakable packages for aggressive solvents.
Polymers can be both thermal and electrical insulators. A walk through your house will reinforce this concept, as you consider all the appliances, cords, electrical outlets and wiring that are made or covered with polymeric materials. Thermal resistance is evident in the kitchen with pot and pan handles made of polymers, the coffee pot handles, the foam core of refrigerators and freezers, insulated cups, coolers, and microwave cookware. The thermal underwear that many skiers wear is made of polypropylene and the fiberfill in winter jackets is acrylic and polyester.
Generally, polymers are very light in weight with significant degrees of strength. Consider the range of applications, from toys to the frame structure of space stations, or from delicate nylon fiber in pantyhose to Kevlar, which is used in bulletproof vests. Some polymers float in water while others sink. But, compared to the density of stone, concrete, steel, copper, or aluminum, all plastics are lightweight materials.
Polymers can be processed in various ways. Extrusion produces thin fibers or heavy pipes or films or food bottles. Injection molding can produce very intricate parts or large car body panels. Plastics can be molded into drums or be mixed with solvents to become adhesives or paints. Elastomers and some plastics stretch and are very flexible. Some plastics are stretched in processing to hold their shape, such as soft drink bottles. Other polymers can be foamed like polystyrene (Styrofoam™), polyurethane and polyethylene.
Polymers are materials with a seemingly limitless range of characteristics and colors. Polymers have many inherent properties that can be further enhanced by a wide range of additives to broaden their uses and applications. Polymers can be made to mimic cotton, silk, and wool fibers; porcelain and marble; and aluminum and zinc. Polymers can also make possible products that do not readily come from the natural world, such as clear sheets and flexible films.
Polymers are usually made of petroleum, but not always. Many polymers are made of repeat units derived from natural gas or coal or crude oil. But building block repeat units can sometimes be made from renewable materials such as polylactic acid from corn or cellulosics from cotton linters. Some plastics have always been made from renewable materials such as cellulose acetate used for screwdriver handles and gift ribbon. When the building blocks can be made more economically from renewable materials than from fossil fuels, either old plastics find new raw materials or new plastics are introduced.
Polymers can be used to make items that have no alternatives from other materials. Polymers can be made into clear, waterproof films. PVC is used to make medical tubing and blood bags that extend the shelf life of blood and blood products. PVC safely delivers flammable oxygen in non-burning flexible tubing. And anti-thrombogenic material, such as heparin, can be incorporated into flexible PVC catheters for open heart surgery, dialysis, and blood collection. Many medical devices rely on polymers to permit effective functioning.
Solid Waste Management
In addressing all the superior attributes of polymers, it is equally important to discuss some of the challenges associated with the materials. Most plastics deteriorate in full sunlight, but never decompose completely when buried in landfills. However, other materials such as glass, paper, or aluminum do not readily decompose in landfills either. Some bioplastics do decompose to carbon dioxide and water, however, in specially designed food waste commercial composting facilities ONLY. They do not biodegrade under other circumstances.
For 20051 the EPA characterization of municipal solid waste before recycling for the United States showed plastics made up 11.8 percent of our trash by weight compared to paper that constituted 34.2 percent. Glass and metals made up 12.8 percent by weight. And yard trimmings constituted 13.1 percent of municipal solid waste by weight. Food waste made up 11.9 percent of municipal solid waste. The characteristics that make polymers so attractive and useful, lightweight and almost limitless physical forms of many polymers designed to deliver specific appearance and functionality, make post-consumer recycling challenging. When enough used plastic items can be gathered together, companies develop technology to recycle those used plastics. The recycling rate for all plastics is not as high as any would want. But, the recycling rate for the 1,170,000,000 pounds of polyester bottles, 23.1%, recycled in 2005 and the 953,000,000 pounds of high density polyethylene bottles, 28.8%, recycled in 2005 show that when critical mass of defined material is available, recycling can be a commercial success2.
Applications for recycled plastics are growing every day. Recycled plastics can be blended with virgin plastic (plastic that has not been processed before) without sacrificing properties in many applications. Recycled plastics are used to make polymeric timbers for use in picnic tables, fences and outdoor playgrounds, thus providing low maintenance, no splinters products and saving natural lumber. Plastic from soft drink and water bottles can be spun into fiber for the production of carpet or made into new food bottles. Closed loop recycling does occur, but sometimes the most valuable use for a recycled plastic is into an application different than the original use.
An option for plastics that are not recycled, especially those that are soiled, such as used food wrap or diapers, can be a waste-to-energy system (WTE). In 2005, 13.6% of US municipal solid waste was processed in WTE systems1. When localities decide to use waste-to-energy systems to manage solid waste, plastics can be a useful component.
The controlled combustion of polymers produces heat energy. The heat energy produced by the burning plastic municipal waste not only can be converted to electrical energy but also helps burn the wet trash that is present. Paper also produces heat when burned, but not as much as do plastics. On the other hand, glass, aluminum and other metals do not release any energy when burned.
To better understand the incineration process, consider the smoke coming off a burning item. If one were to ignite the smoke with a lit propane torch, one would observe that the smoke disappears. This exercise illustrates that the by-products of incomplete burning are still flammable. Proper incineration burns the material and the by-products of the initial burning and also takes care of air and solid emissions to insure public safety.
Some plastics can be composted either because of special additives or because of the construction of the polymers. Compostable plastics frequently require more intense conditions to decompose than are available in backyard compost piles. Commercial composters are suggested for compostable plastics. In 20051, composting processed 8.4% of US municipal solid waste.
Plastics can also be safely land filled, although the valuable energy resource of the plastics would then be lost for recycling or energy capture. In 20051, 54.3% of US municipal solid waste was land filled. Plastics are used to line landfills so that leachate is captured and groundwater is not polluted. Non-degrading plastics help stabilize the ground so that after the landfill is closed, the land can be stable enough for useful futures.
Polymers affect every day of our life. These materials have so many varied characteristics and applications that their usefulness can only be measured by our imagination. Polymers are the materials of past, present and future generations.
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US Agency Addresses Data Gaps In Consumer Nano Exposure
May 20, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Significant data gaps exist in understanding and characterising human exposure to nanomaterials in consumer products, the head of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has told Congress.
The federal government has spent billions of dollars in research to expand the use of nanomaterials, but “there is a significant lag in assessing possible health effects of human exposure in consumer products, especially to vulnerable populations such as our children,” said CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye.
In testimony before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, he advocated that the $5m sought in the agency's fiscal 2016 budget be used to set up a nanotechnology research centre.
With questions raised by scientists about the the effects that inhalation might have on human lungs, “concerns that centre on identified similarities to asbestos, we are proposing to significantly advance the state of science as it relates to human exposure from nanomaterials in consumer products,” he said. He noted that if the CPSC does not take up this work, it will not be done by any other federal agency.
The research centre will help “safe commercialisation” of consumer products, containing nanomaterials, by developing test methods to quantify exposures and assess health risks, says the CPSC's budget request.
Republican members criticised the conclusions of the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel (CHAP) on which the CPSC based its decision to issue a proposed rule to ban an addition five phthalates in children's toys and childcare articles (CW 12 January 2015).
Saying consumer confidence is “rooted in the belief that the commission has the capacity to base its decisions on supportable scientific findings,” Subcommittee Chairman Michael Burgess said: “It is dangerous and short sighted for a safety agency to move away from sound science and scientific principles as I believe has happened with the CHAP Report regarding phthalates.”
Responding to questions from lawmakers, CPSC Commissioner Ann Buerkle, who voted against the proposed rule, called the CHAP report irrelevant because the panel “did not use timely data”. She said the agency has now asked staff to analyse more recent data.
Mr Kaye said the staff's analysis will be put out for public comment.
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Test Your Sun Safety Knowledge: EWG Tackles Five Popular Myths
May 19, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Sonya Lunder
I love this time of year. After a long, cold winter, how can you resist the sun when it beckons you to go outside?
Before you leave the house, though, be sure to reduce your risk of skin damage. Cover up with a shirt, put on sunglasses and check the UV index to plan events around the sun. Early morning or late afternoon are the best times to go outdoors.
Limiting sun exposure and wearing protective clothing are more important than sunscreen for preventing skin cancer and premature aging. Here are five popular myths not to believe:
Myth #1 All sunscreens are created equal.
FACT – EWG’s research finds wide disparities among these products.
A whopping 80 percent of sun protection products analyzed by EWG contain potentially harmful ingredients or offer inadequate protection against dangerous ultraviolet radiation. Many products do not provide enough UVA protection. Some contain hazardous chemicals such as the hormone disruptor oxybenzone or retinyl palmitate, a form of vitamin A linked to skin damage.
Only 21 percent of the 1,000 sunscreens analyzed for EWG’s guide scored high marks. Roughly 19 percent of moisturizers and 21 percent of lip balms scored well.
Myth #2 High-rated SPF sunscreens give people complete protection.
FACT – High-SPF products tempt people to apply too little sunscreen and stay in the sun too long. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed prohibiting the sale of sunscreens with SPF values greater than 50+, calling higher SPF values “inherently misleading,” but it has not issued a regulation that carries the force of law. Twelve percent of sunscreens EWG evaluated this year advertise SPF values greater than 50+.
Myth #3 People who have darker skin or don’t burn do not need to wear sunscreen.
FACT – People with darker skin tan more easily and may rarely burn. They tend to take fewer measures to protect themselves from sunlight. However, sun protection is important for all skin tones. Everyone is susceptible to UVA-rays, which cause skin aging, immune system suppression and melanoma. Although melanoma rates are lower among people with darker skin, the risk of dying of melanoma is higher, perhaps because cancers aren’t detected as early or treated as aggressively.
Myth #4 People who wear sunscreen risk vitamin D deficiency.
FACT – Large trials have shown that sunscreen use plays an insignificant role in vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D strengthens bones and the immune system and reduces risks of breast, colon, kidney and ovarian cancers and perhaps other disorders.
In fact about 25 percent of Americans have borderline low levels of vitamin D, and eight percent have a serious deficiency. People with darker skin, older people, infants and those living at higher latitudes are at high risk for vitamin D deficiency. Ask your doctor if you should take a vitamin D supplement for part or all of the year.
Myth #5 The FDA has you covered.
FACT – President Obama signed the Sunscreen Innovation Act into law last December to help alleviate the backlog of promising sunscreen ingredients waiting for government approval. The bill aimed to create a more efficient process for the FDA to scrutinize new sun filters for over-the-counter sunscreens.
Until the legislation is fully implemented, Americans won’t have the same access to sunscreens sold in other parts of the world, including Europe and Canada.
The European Commission has stricter standards for SPF values and UVA protection than the FDA. We estimate that about half of the products in this year’s guide are too weak for the European market.
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Shoppers who use EWG’s guide can find sunscreens that are more effective, and safer for themselves and their family. Before you head outdoors this summer, be sure to arm yourself with the best sunscreens, SPF-rated moisturizers and lip balms.
And don’t forget to look over EWG’s Sunscreen Hall of Shame, which draws attention to products that promise safe sun protection and don’t deliver. More than 30 products landed in EWG’s 2015 Sunscreen Hall of Shame because of potentially harmful ingredients, inhalation risks from sprays and excessive SPF claims.
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Court Consolidates Petroleum Catalyst Suit With Fight Over EPA DSW Rule
May 19, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
A federal appeals court has consolidated litigation from 2009 contesting EPA's treatment of spent petroleum refinery catalysts under a 2008 waste rule with newly filed litigation by industry and environmentalists challenging the agency's recently finalized Definition of Solid Waste (DSW) rule governing hazardous waste recycling.
The action signals the resurfacing of an issue that has long been held in abeyance until the agency's release of its revamped DSW rule.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a May 18 order agreed to the consolidation at the request of the American Petroleum Institute (API), which contends one of its two main arguments from 2009 remains valid even after EPA revised the DSW rule.
The order wraps API v. EPA -- a 2009 lawsuit over petroleum refinery catalysts' treatment under the agency's 2008 DSW rule -- into Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG), et al. v. EPA -- the new lawsuit challenging EPA's 2015 final DSW rule. The court previously consolidated litigation by the energy utility industry and the chemical and oil industry, including API, as well as environmentalists, into the USWAG suit.
The parties in USWAG are challenging EPA's long-awaited rule, which the agency published in the Federal Register Jan. 13. The newly final rule responds to litigation filed by environmentalists over the 2008 rule and attempts to close what EPA saw as regulatory gaps in the 2008 version by mandating use of all four of the agency's criteria for determining that recycling of hazardous waste is legitimate, rather than just two under the Bush-era rule. It also eliminates a transfer-based exclusion from the solid waste definition, replacing it with a stricter "verified recycler exclusion," and it affirms the legitimacy of pre-2008 DSW exclusions.
Prior to the 2015 rule, petroleum refiners in API argued the Bush-era rule was too stringent because it made certain petroleum refinery catalysts ineligible for the so-called transfer-based exclusion that the 2008 rule allowed for other items. Under the transfer-based exclusion, companies that transferred certain spent materials to third parties for recycling purposes could be exempted from complying with certain waste management requirements. API sued EPA over the issue, arguing it was improper for EPA to grant other spent materials the exemption but not spent petroleum refinery catalysts. These catalysts contain metals, such as vanadium, nickel and cobalt, and other compounds like aluminum sulfate that can be reused.
'Disparate Treatment'
In API, refiners argued first that the agency's "disparate regulatory treatment" of petroleum catalysts and similar materials was arbitrary and capricious, and second that its "decision to assert [Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA)] authority over recycled refinery catalysts as 'solid wastes' was arbitrary and capricious and in excess of statutory authority, regardless of how the challenged rule treated other materials," API says in an April 27 motion, referencing its opening brief in API. In that case, the court ruled in 2012 that API's challenge was not ripe for review because of EPA's actions to move forward on a new rule.
EPA's reservations about giving petroleum catalysts an exclusion from solid waste were largely driven by the material's pyrophoric properties -- igniting spontaneously upon contact with air, EPA says in the 2015 rule. This risk "is not a property most metal recyclers would be expected to address," it says.
In the 2015 rule, EPA allows spent petroleum catalysts "to be eligible" for both the generator-controlled exclusion and verified recycler exclusion from solid waste requirements. However, the agency adds a regulatory definition for the "contained" standard as it applies to these two exclusions, requiring under this definition that the risk of fires and explosions be addressed, the rule says. This measure "addresses the pyrophoric properties of the spent petroleum catalysts (as well as other types of ignitibility or reactivity) for the purposes of the generator-controlled exclusion and the verified recycler exclusion," the rule says.
In the motion, API concedes that its first claim of arbitrary disparate treatment is likely moot due to the way in which the 2015 rule revises the definition of solid waste.
"However, the 2015 rule continues to assert RCRA authority over recycled refinery catalysts in a manner that API maintains is arbitrary and capricious and in excess of EPA's statutory authority," the motion says. "Accordingly, the second major aspect of API's challenge to the 2008 rule has ripened." Noting that the two cases have this key issue in common, API argued for consolidation, which the court has now granted.
API's Concerns
In its May 13 statement of issues filed in the consolidated USWAG case, API lists the catalyst issue among several it is raising.
Other issues API states are: whether the agency's elimination of the transfer-based exclusion from the solid waste definition was arbitrary and capricious and illegal; and whether in revising the "generator-controlled" exclusion from solid waste and in granting an exclusion from solid waste for secondary materials reclaimed at a "verified reclamation facility," EPA acted outside the law by effectively regulating materials that have not been "discarded" -- key to defining a substance as solid waste.
API in the consolidated case is also raising issues over EPA's emergency preparedness and response requirements governing reclamation performed under a generator's control, questioning whether EPA's decision to do this without first providing for sufficient notice and an opportunity for comment fails to follow legal procedures. Finally, API says it is raising the issue of "[w]hether EPA's classification of commercial chemical products as 'secondary materials' -- in cases other than those where such products are used or recycled in ways different from their normal manner of use -- was arbitrary, capricious" or failed to follow legal processes, because "(a) such products are not 'discarded' and thus, are not subject to regulation under RCRA; (b) EPA changed its longstanding policy without providing a reasoned explanation; and (c) EPA did not respond to API's material comments on the issue."
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RFA Honored By Transcaer For Ethanol Education Safety Initiatives
May 19, 2015 | Ethanol Producer Magazine
The Renewable Fuels Association was recently awarded the 2014 Transcaer Achievement Award. This is the third year in a row that RFA has been awarded this honor as it continues working to ensure first responders have the proper training and resources to respond to ethanol-related emergencies. According to Transcaer the award is given to “recognize the achievements of individuals, companies, and organizations which have gone beyond the normal call of duty to advocate, demonstrate and implement the principles of Transcaer.” Transcaer is a volunteer coalition that works to ensure our nation’s emergency responders are educated with the most up-to-date information to ensure they — and their communities — are prepared to handle hazardous material disasters.
RFA established an “Ethanol Safety Seminar” program—in conjunction with Transcaer—to educate emergency responders on the make-up and properties of ethanol as well as proper emergency techniques when responding to potentially harmful scenarios. The curriculum is centered on Ethanol Emergency Response Coalition’s “Training Guide to Ethanol Emergency Response,” which has been used over the past five years to educate 4,600 first responders all across the country.
Kristy Moore, vice president of technical services at RFA, stated, “While the ethanol industry is rightly proud of our enviable rail safety record—99.997 percent of our shipments arrived without incident over the past five years—we also know that accidents can happen and we are always looking to improve and to assure an effective emergency response even for those rare cases.”
Moore continued, “A popular adage goes something like this: ‘proper prior planning prevents poor performance’. That is what we are trying to accomplish with the safety seminars and the partnership with Transcaer. Equipped with the proper planning and information emergency responders will be prepared to effectively handle any ethanol-related situation that comes alone. We would like to thank Transcaer for this award and for their continued partnership over the years to accomplish our shared goal of taking a pro-active response to safety.”
Missy Ruff, RFA’s technical services manager, was on hand to receive the award at the AAR/BOE Hazardous Materials Seminar in Addison, Texas. For more information on the Ethanol Safety Seminars or to obtain a copy of the “Training Guide to Ethanol Emergency Response,” please contact Missy at mruff@EthanolRFA.org.
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Oil Pipeline Spills About 21,000 Gallons Off California Coast
May 19, 2015 | AP (in TIME)
The U.S. Coast Guard estimates that about 21,000 gallons of oil spilled into the ocean when a pipeline broke on the central California coast.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Andrea Anderson says Tuesday’s pipeline break has created an oil slick stretching for about 4 miles of beach and about 50 yards into the ocean.
Santa Barbara County fire officials say the source was a pipeline that broke and sent oil into a culvert that ran into the ocean.
The pipe, which is operated by Plains All American Pipeline LP, has been shut off. The company did not immediately respond to phone messages seeking comment.
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(ACC Mentioned) Eastman Chemical, Trade Group Sue EPA Over Air Rule for Off-Site Waste, Recovery
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A Tennessee chemical company and an industry trade group are challenging an Environmental Protection Agency rule that set more stringent toxic air pollutant controls for facilities that handle waste, used oil and used solvents (Am. Chemistry Council v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1146, 5/18/15; Eastman Chemical Co. v. EPA, D.C. Cir. 15-1147, No. , 5/18/15).
Eastman Chemical Co. and the previous hitAmerican Chemistry Councilnext hit filed their lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit May 18. The company is challenging the EPA's national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) for off-site waste and recovery operations (RIN 2060–AR47), which was issued March 18.
The rule completes the periodic review of available control technologies and health risk posed by the industry's toxic emissions required by the Clean Air Act. It requires more stringent toxic air pollutant controls for tanks and process vents at facilities that store, treat, recover or dispose of waste, used oil and used solvents, as well as more stringent leak detection and repair requirements for valves and pumps (53 DEN A-9, 3/19/15).
Eastman Chemical Co. is being represented by William Lane and Alan McConnell of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP. The previous hitAmerican Chemistry Councilnext hit is being represented by David Friedland and Kristin Gladd of Beveridge & Diamond PC.
Expected Costs Outlined
The agency said the final rule is expected to cost industry $4.1 million in capital costs and $1.1 million in annualized costs. The regulation is expected to reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants by 211 tons per year.
Sections 112(d)(6) and 112(f)(2) of the Clean Air Act require the agency to review its hazardous air pollution emissions limits every eight years and promulgate additional standards to protect public health against any residual risk if further controls are deemed necessary. The EPA first issued standards for off-site waste and recovery operations in 1996.
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House Panel Releases Bill to Expedite LNG Export Reviews, Cross-Border Projects
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Draft legislation released by a House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee would require the Energy Department to expedite its approval process for liquefied natural gas export projects.
The bill, which will be incorporated into a broad bill being developed by the full committee, would also stipulate that no presidential permit is required for cross-border energy projects such as pipelines and transmission projects.
“The legislation seeks to advance energy diplomacy by improving coordination and planning and removing barriers to trade among U.S. allies and partners,” the committee said in a statement.
30-Day Deadline
Specifically, the legislation incorporates language from H.R. 351, which passed the House in January with support from organizations representing companies such as Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. and Range Resources Corp.
The bill would place a 30-day deadline on DOE to issue a final decision on applications to export LNG following the conclusion of the National Environmental Policy Act environmental review, provide for expedited judicial review by the appellate court for the circuit in which the export facility will be located, and require public disclosure of export destinations as a condition of approval of authorization to export LNG, according to a summary.
Hearings Planned
The bill will be considered May 21 during a hearing featuring Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and a separate hearing June 2, the committee said.
Other highlights include the establishment of an interagency task force, led by the energy secretary, to identify ways to improve federal interagency coordination for permitting major energy projects.
“America is emerging as the world's leading energy superpower, but with this triumph comes new opportunities and diplomatic responsibilities,” Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said in a statement. “Our abundance of resources can be used to fortify our own energy security while also supporting our allies in their quest for affordable and reliable energy.”
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Manchin Backs Crude Export Ban Repeal Bill Introduced by Heitkamp
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who sits on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is co-sponsoring a bill to lift the ban on the export of domestic crude oil, the first time the lawmaker has come out in favor of lifting the trade prohibition, Jonathan Kott, a spokesman for the senator, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail.
Manchin is the sole Democratic co-sponsor of the American Crude Oil Export Equality Act (S. 1372) introduced May 19 by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) in conjunction with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“As a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, I have been very involved in ongoing discussions about exporting crude oil and addressing the many concerns about a potential price increase for American consumers,” Manchin said in a statement. “This bill provides triggers to stop exports if gas prices increase or if our economy is adversely affected. Lifting the ban on oil exports will also improve our national security interests by reducing our trade deficits, neutralizing countries like Iran that extract the same types of oil as the United States, expanding our competitive edge in a global marketplace, and providing a stable source of energy to our allies so that they will no longer be dependent on undemocratic regimes.”
In addition, the bill would give the president the ability to impose restrictions on oil exports, like licensing requirements, for up to one year under certain special circumstances, such as national security threats, emergencies and sustained crude oil shortages, a bill summary said.
GAO Would Analyze Impact
The legislation also would require the Government Accountability Office to analyze the impact the lifted oil export ban is having on energy production across the country, consumers, independent oil refiners, as well as shipbuilders and ship repair yards, the summary said.
Supporters of lifting the trade prohibition include companies such as Hess Corp., Marathon Oil Corp. and ConocoPhillips. Opponents include refiners such as Alon USA, Monroe Energy, PBF Energy and Philadelphia Energy Solutions.
The bill, which has been referred to the Senate Banking Committee, will be merged later with a separate crude oil export ban repeal bill (S. 1312) introduced by Murkowski March 13, Heitkamp said in a statement.
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Obama Administration Opposes Senate Offshore Drilling Bills, Official Testifies
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The Obama administration opposes a trio of bills that would require oil and gas lease sales offshore Alaska, in the South Atlantic and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, an Interior Department official said.
The bills (S. 1278, S. 1276, S. 1279), which also would increase the number of states allowed to receive a share of federal revenues from energy produced off their coasts, “would divert offshore energy development revenue from the Treasury, reducing the net return to taxpayers and adding to the federal deficit,” Abigail Hopper, director of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, May 19 told the Senate energy committee.
The three bills are among the proposals Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is considering incorporating into an omnibus energy bill expected to be released later this summer.
The committee has tried unsuccessfully to expand revenue sharing in the past. A 2011 markup of drilling safety reform legislation in response to BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and blowout was halted after an amendment was offered to the bill and backed by Murkowski that would have expanded revenue-sharing to Alaska and other coastal states.
Committee Brought to Standstill
“These are concepts that have brought this committee to a stand-still on multiple occasions,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee's ranking member, said during the hearing.
Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Murkowski and other Republicans on the committee, told Bloomberg BNA the chairman would be willing to consider other legislative vehicles to expand revenue-sharing.
Hopper, during her testimony, said the Justice Department “ has constitutional concerns” regarding S. 1279, by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and other East Coast lawmakers that would require the Interior Department to hold three oil and gas lease sales in the south Atlantic.
Administration Proposes to Work With Congress
“As an alternative to multiple revenue sharing programs that benefit individual States and administration of a costly and cumbersome revenue allocation formula, the Administration proposes to work with Congress on legislation to redirect revenue sharing payments allocated by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (GOMESA) to four Gulf of Mexico coastal States,” she said.
In her written testimony, Hopper said the administration proposes to “redirect these payments, which are set to expand substantially starting in 2017, to programs that provide broad natural resource, watershed, and conservation benefits to the Nation; help the Federal government fulfill its role of being a good neighbor to local communities; and support other national priorities.”
Murkowski said Hopper's comments were “disconcerting,” following a previous “commitment” from Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to work with the committee on revenue-sharing.
Under current law, only four states—Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas—are eligible under the act to receive 37.5 percent of revenues from offshore oil and gas development that would otherwise go to the U.S. Treasury.
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Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Local Fracking Restrictions
May 19, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill to block local ordinances against hydraulic fracturing.
The new law comes in response to a resolution banning fracking in the Texas town of Denton, which voters passed last November. The law “preempts regulation of oil and gas activity at the city level and resides that duty with the state,” according to Abbott’s office, and it “ensures that any local regulation of surface activity is commercially reasonable and does not effectively prohibit an oil and gas operation.”“This law ensures that Texas avoids a patchwork quilt of regulations that differ from region to region, differ from county to county or city to city,” Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement. The law “strikes a meaningful and correct balance between local control and preserving the state’s authority to ensure that regulations are even-handed and do not hamper job creation.”
Denton voters approved the city’s fracking ban in November, alongside a few other cities around the country. The state’s oil and gas industry opposed the ordinance, and eventually sued over it.
Texas lawmakers took up the bill overruling the ban in April, eventually passing it easily in both the House and Senate. Green groups opposed the move. Environment Texas told the Dallas Morning News that the state "has failed to stop Big Oil from polluting our air and water, causing earthquakes, and putting our families at risk from leaks, spills and explosions."
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Industry Lawsuit Charges Fracking Rule Makes Little or No Sense, Costs Too Much
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
The new federal regulations for oil and gas wells using hydraulic fracturing on federal lands violate federal law because they are impractical and issued through a series of violations of federal procedures, two industry associations told a court in support of their petition to block the regulations (Indep. Petroleum Ass'n of Am. v. Jewell, D. Wyo., No. 2:15-cv-00041, 5/15/15).
The regulations in some cases make little or no sense and in other cases would impose steep costs without environmental benefits or clear explanation, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, said the May 15 memorandum from the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, asked the court for a preliminary injunction against the regulations, due to go into effect June 24.
The government has until May 29 to file a response and has requested an extension to June 3.
The regulations were issued in a rule March 20 by the Bureau of Land Management, an Interior Department agency. The lawsuit, filed the same day that the rule appeared, named Interior Secretary Sally Jewell as lead defendant (55 DEN A-16, 3/23/15).
Rule's Problems Ignored, Groups Say
“Ignoring comprehensive comments in the record detailing the technical and legal problems of earlier proposals, BLM has arbitrarily issued a rule that lacks justification, cannot be administered technically, and violates federal law,” the plaintiffs said.
“BLM's misunderstanding of numerous technical aspects of oil and gas production, as well as the agency's failure to properly account for the final rule's economic consequences undermines the procedural legitimacy of the rulemaking,” the plaintiffs said.
Several elements in the rule were described as arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act because of their lack of clear justification or practicality.
The plaintiffs said oil and gas well operators will be required to certify that hydraulic fracturing fluids complied with all applicable laws and regulations, even though the operators often lack legal access to the details of the fracking fluids, which may be trade secrets held by service companies.
Criticizes Phrasing on Fluid Storage
The phrasing of the requirement for storage of fracking fluids in covered storage tanks “is crafted in a manner that will, at best, never apply or, at worst, be impossible to comply with,” the associations said.
The final rule requires an operator to perform a mechanical integrity test of any well but doesn't explain the technical details of the test, the plaintiffs said, an objection also recently heard from industry observers (80 DEN A-13, 4/27/15).
“The result of BLM's approach is that operators are now faced with a requirement to perform a test without any understanding of what that test is or of how it should be conducted,” the plaintiffs said.
When a technical definition is central to the operation of a rule and the agency has failed to define the terms at all, the rule is arbitrary, the associations said.
Requires Protection of Underground Waters
The BLM rule requires well operators to protect underground waters that aren't drinkable by humans or animals, without explanation for why it should do so, the groups said. Nor does the rule explain how to do so, they said.
“BLM offers no empirical evidence or science-based support for a need to protect water that is so saline it can kill livestock,” the groups said.
The chief justification BLM identifies for its final rule is public concern about whether fracturing can lead to or cause the contamination of underground water sources, the associations said.
“BLM does not appear to have given any consideration into whether this concern is substantiated, for there is no technical discussion in the regulatory preamble related to the likelihood of hydraulic fracturing operations impacting underground water sources,” the groups said.
Holes Cited in BLM's Effort
“BLM has neither substantiated the existence of [a] problem this rule is meant to address, identified the gap in existing regulations the final rule will fill, or described the objectives the final rule will achieve. Unsubstantiated assumptions are insufficient justification and rationale to support an agency's promulgation of this regulation,” the groups said.
A decision that isn't based on appropriate facts is the essence of the legal definition of arbitrary, the groups said.
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Shale Gas Set to Pummel Another Market As LNG Plants Go Online in United States
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Isis Almeida
The U.S. is about to change the global natural gas market forever.
When the first tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from shale fields leaves the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana in December, it will turn consumers into traders with more bargaining power. That will transform a market dominated by long-term contracts into one where spot trading gains prominence, similar to crude oil.
Since the first LNG cargo went to the United Kingdom from Algeria under a long-term contract in 1964, buyers opted for guaranteed supply because the fuel was scarce. That's changing because gas from the Bakken and other fields will transform the U.S. into the third-biggest exporter by 2020. Spot trading will probably account for almost half of transactions by then, up from 29 percent last year, and LNG is poised to overtake iron ore as the most valuable commodity after oil.
“We see the U.S. as a major contributor to the development of the LNG spot market as the volumes start to ramp up,” Jamie Buckland, head of investor relations at GasLog Ltd. in London, which owns 22 LNG tankers, wrote in an e-mail May 14. “There should be a lot more flexibility and you could see some buyers of U.S. volumes selling product on to others.”
On May 12, the Energy Department gave Cheniere Energy Inc. final approval for the nation's fifth major export terminal at Corpus Christi in Texas, which will ship the fuel from 2018 (92 DEN A-17, 5/13/15).
Valuable Commodity
Companies including Tokyo Gas Co. have said they will seek to profit from buying and selling U.S. cargoes that, unlike those on most current contracts, aren't tied to a destination. Cheniere, the operator of Sabine Pass, expects the U.S. to produce 74 million metric tons of LNG by 2020. That's about 22 percent of expected global output by 2019. Only Qatar and Australia will produce more.
U.S. natural gas will play an important role in connecting Pacific and Atlantic markets, Shigeru Muraki, an adviser at Tokyo Gas, said at conference in Kuala Lumpur on May 19. The company is expanding its investment in shale gas production in the U.S. as a natural hedge for LNG, he said.
Suppliers are now signing deals going as short as two or three years rather than 20 years, according to Charif Souki, Cheniere's chief executive officer.
Long-term contracts will be eroded amid new supply coming from Australia and the U.S., Dubai Mercantile Exchange's CEO Christopher Fix said at the conference in Kuala Lumpur.
LNG trade will exceed $120 billion this year, overtaking iron ore as the second most valuable commodity after oil, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a March report. LNG is gas-cooled to minus 160 degrees Celsius (minus 256 degrees Fahrenheit), so it occupies 600 times less space.
‘Constant Supply.’
Spot and short-term LNG trades are defined by the International Group of LNG Importers in Paris as deals lasting four years or less. They accounted for 16 percent of all transactions in 2006, and that share may expand to 45 percent by 2020, according to Alan Whitefield, a senior associate at Sund Energy AS, a consultant to the industry.
The total LNG market will expand 40 percent by 2019, from 2013 levels, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris.
“What will make it a more interesting market is when gas starts being exported from the U.S., because then it becomes really like a commodity market,” Marco Dunand, the CEO of Mercuria Energy Group Ltd., said in an interview in April in Lausanne, Switzerland. “If you have constant supply coming from a terminal, then it becomes a liquid commodity.”
The new U.S. supply will also help link regional markets, said Ann-Elisabeth Serck-Hanssen, acting senior vice president of marketing and trading at Statoil ASA in Stavanger, Norway.
“We as a trading organization make our living from margins, so it both opens up opportunities and ties the different producing regions closer together,” she said by phone May 13. “If you believe a good market is a liquid market, this is positive.”
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Shell Defends Plans to Drill in Arctic, Citing New Tests, Quick-Response System
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rakteem Katakey and Fred Pals
Royal Dutch Shell Plc defended its planned return to Arctic drilling, saying new spill-containment systems would prevent a disaster in the event of an oil leak.
Shell has carried out tests in an environment that replicates Arctic conditions, Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden said May 19 at a shareholder meeting in The Hague. The company would be able to deploy equipment within an hour of an accident, he said.
“We are actually also doing what I believe is unprecedented and over and above requirements that a regulator would set,” Van Beurden said. “We have gone to tremendous lengths to make sure we understand the risks.”
Shell is returning to the Arctic three years after its rig ran aground in a storm (35 DEN A-3, 2/23/15).
Opponents say drilling would threaten pristine areas and wildlife already at risk from global warming, while a spill could contaminate the region's fragile environment. The company contends that the world needs a continuous supply of oil to meet demand.
Without further investment in production, the gap between supply and demand may widen to 70 million barrels a day by 2040, according to Van Beurden. That's almost seven times Saudi Arabia's current output.
Campaigners from Greenpeace showed up at the shareholder meeting with an artificial polar bear to protest Shell's plans.
“We want to draw attention to the dangers of drilling in the Arctic,” activist Paulien Sonnevelt said outside the venue. “If you don't do anything, nothing will change.”
Seattle Protest
Protesters in kayaks at the port of Seattle demonstrated earlier in May to resist the entry of the Polar Pioneer drilling rig, which Shell plans to use in the Arctic, the Guardian newspaper reported May 16.
Shell wants to resume drilling in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska this summer and continue next year, Van Beurden told shareholders. The company needs more approvals from the U.S. government before it can start.
President Barack Obama is seeking to strike a balance between oil demand and concerns that climate change is increasing, Robert J. Papp Jr., the State Department's special envoy for the Arctic, said May 18.
Shell, which discovered oil in the same part of the ocean in 1986, is the first major explorer to return to the region since the last offshore Arctic drilling boom fizzled almost 30 years ago amid slumping crude prices.
“A lot of measures have been put in place to deal with the very unlikely event of a spill,” Van Beurden said. “Nowhere ever in the industry has there been taken so much precautionary measures.”
ExxonMobil Corp., BP Plc and other producers have discovered more than 10 billion barrels of oil in North American Arctic seas since the early 1970s. Those resources remain locked beneath the sea floor because of a lack of pipeline capacity to haul them to faraway markets.
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Greens Cry Foul Over Shell’s Arctic Safety Audit
May 19, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor
Shell submitted to a third-party safety audit as part of what President Barack Obama described as unprecedented hurdles the oil giant had to overcome to restart its troubled Arctic drilling operations — but the results of that review remain under wraps, much to environmentalists’ frustration.
The independent audit was a key recommendation of the Interior Department report on the failures that plagued Shell’s 2012 foray into the Arctic, and both the company and the administration say its first phase resulted in a clean bill of health. Meanwhile, green groups intent on keeping Shell’s rigs from the remote Alaskan coastal waters are raising alarms about the company’s control over the audit results.
A Freedom of Information Act request is required to obtain the results of the audit’s first phase, an Interior spokesman confirmed to POLITICO, while the second phase will take place in the field after Shell’s equipment arrives in the remote region where it plans to drill.
When Greenpeace sought details on the audit through FOIA, however, Interior told the activist group to prepare for a delay.
Shell will have time to respond and propose the shielding of audit information it views as confidential, the Interior FOIA officer told Greenpeace, according to a copy of the response viewed by POLITICO. After the administration makes the final call on how much information to disclose, Interior added, Shell would have the opportunity to “file a court action” to stop the information’s release.
“President Obama and Sally Jewell have said Shell has learned its lessons from the company’s 2012 fiasco, but without seeing the results of this audit, we’re simply taking Shell’s word for it,” Greenpeace spokesman Travis Nichols said. “That’s not good enough. Have either Secretary Jewell or President Obama seen the results of the audit? What, specifically, do they think the lessons are that Shell learned?”
Obama defended Interior’s vetting of Shell last week in the face of withering criticism from environmentalists, telling reporters that the company had to “provide us with the kind of assurances that we have not seen before” in order to win approval to drill up to six wells in the delicate and challenging conditions of the Chukchi Sea.
Shell says the company has met the administration’s standard.
“We are pleased to pass along that the independent audit found no issues of significance and we look forward to the next phase during actual operations,” company spokesman Curtis Smith said by email.
But Nichols lamented that the results of the audit’s first phase were unavailable during “the brief window” that Interior allowed for public comments on the Shell drilling plan. In addition, he said, “the fact that Stage II has not occurred yet seems to violate” Interior’s previous urging that the audit take place before further drilling.
Shell proposed and compensated the contractor that performed the audit to Interior, which approved the hiring of the third-party company under its preexisting rules, a spokesman for the department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement told POLITICO.
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California Oil Regulators Could Lose Power Over Aquifer Mess
May 19, 2015 | SF Gate
By David R. Baker
Under fire for letting petroleum companies pump wastewater into aquifers, California oil-field regulators could see some of their responsibilities taken away — and handed to other agencies.
State Sen. Fran Pavley on Tuesday proposed launching an audit of California’s Divison of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources to see whether some of its functions would be better handled by other government offices.
The division has come under scrutiny for letting oil companies inject leftover water from oil field operations into potentially usable aquifers beneath California’s drought-stricken Central Valley. The division has pledged to fix the problem and has asked the Legislature for more money and staff to do so, seeking $3.5 million to fund 23 new positions.
But on Tuesday, Pavley, one of Sacramento’s most influential legislators on environmental issues, proposed taking the additional money and staff positions requested by the division and giving them to the State Water Resources Control Board instead — to do the same work. She also wants the water board to have veto power over any permits the division issues that could possibly affect water quality.
“As chairman of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, I cannot gamble when it comes to protecting our groundwater,” said Pavley, D-Agoura Hills (Los Angeles County). She criticized the division for what she called “an ongoing lack of oversight.”
Her proposals will be discussed on Wednesday by a Senate budget subcommittee.
The division is part of the California Department of Conservation. The department’s chief deputy director, Jason Marshall, on Tuesday declined to comment on Pavley’s proposals.
“The Department of Conservation remains firmly committed to updating and reforming systems to ensure public and environmental health and safety,” he said.
As described in a Chronicle investigation in February, the division for years improperly issued hundreds of wastewater injection permits into aquifers that should have been protected by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. By the division’s most recent count, issued Monday, a total of 452 disposal wells went into aquifers whose water, if treated, could have been used for drinking or irrigation. Another 2,021 wells pumped wastewater or steam into aquifers that also contain oil, with the injections helping to squeeze more petroleum from the ground.
California oil fields typically contain large amounts of water that must be separated from the petroleum and disposed of, usually by pumping it back underground. But oil companies can inject their “produced water” only into aquifers that have been specifically approved for wastewater storage by the EPA.
Since the problem came to light, the EPA has pressured state officials to find out whether current drinking water supplies have been contaminated and put a stop to the injections. So far, the state has not found any cases in which the injections have tainted drinking water for cities, farms or individual homes.
The division has shut down 23 injection wells deemed to pose the greatest threat and has committed to closing the rest in stages over the next two years. Pavley and seven other legislators asked Gov. Jerry Brown in March to stop the injections immediately, to no avail. This month, two environmental groups sued the state, seeking a court order to do the same thing.
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$35.4 Billion Energy, Water Bill Approved By Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee voted May 19 to approve a $35.4 billion fiscal year 2016 energy and water appropriations bill, clearing the way for consideration by the full committee May 21.
The legislation would appropriate nearly $30 billion for the Department of Energy, $5.5 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and $1.1 billion for the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, said.
The bill, which was approved by voice vote, also includes a rider that would bar the corps from redefining mining “fill material.”
Mining Rider
The provision, which also was included in the House-passed version of the bill, is supported by organizations representing mining companies such as Peabody Energy Corp. and Alpha Natural Resources Inc., which fear a revised definition could force mountain top removal mining activities to be permitted under a more stringent section of the Clean Water Act.
As expected, the bill includes language that would establish a pilot program to allow consolidated nuclear waste storage sites and a provision that would allow the Energy Department to store nuclear waste at private facilities, such as those proposed by private companies in Texas and New Mexico.
Alexander said in a statement that the legislation that he and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.) “worked to develop is a bipartisan starting point that creates a pilot program for consolidated storage and includes language that allows the U.S. Department of Energy to work with private storage facilities. Putting an end to our decades-long nuclear waste stalemate will involve completing Yucca Mountain, and I look forward to an open amendment process in the U.S. Senate and to working with the House to remove obstacles to nuclear power.”
Yucca Funding Battle Ahead?
Under current law, the DOE is prohibited from developing an interim storage site for commercial radioactive waste until the proposed permanent waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is fully licensed. That repository, however, has been shelved by the Obama administration, which said in 2010 that Yucca Mountain was “unworkable” and terminated the project.
Unlike the House version of the legislation, which appropriated $150 million for the Yucca project, the Senate bill does not include funding for Yucca in its base text, Alexander, a Yucca proponent, told reporters following the markup.
That issue, he said, “should be handled on the floor or in the conference.”
Clean Energy Funding Increased
Other highlights of the bill include $1.95 billion for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, an increase of more than $300 million compared to funding levels in the House bill. The office, known as EERE, funds clean energy technologies such as those related to wind and solar power, as well clean vehicle technologies and programs to increase building energy efficiency.
The bill also would fund the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) at $291 million, according to a summary.
In addition, the bill would allow water infrastructure spending to increase (see related story).
More details about the bill, which also would fund independent agencies such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will be released after the full committee markup.
The House passed its $35.4 billion version of the legislation (H.R. 2028) May 1, despite a White House veto threat (85 DEN A-17, 5/4/15).
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House Panel Rolls Out 'Energy Diplomacy' Draft
May 19, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
House Republicans today released draft legislation that aims to expedite the permitting of major cross-border energy projects and shipments of liquefied natural gas.
The bill, which the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power will discuss Thursday and during a June 2 hearing, will guide the "energy diplomacy" title of the House's energy package.
It contains elements of earlier House energy bills, including a provision that aims to improve coordination for cross-border energy infrastructure projects with Canada and Mexico by establishing an interagency federal task force charged with making recommendations for improving energy transfers.
The measure also would require the Energy and State departments to hold at least four forums focused on promoting energy security at home and abroad with U.S. trade partners.
In a nod to the yearslong fight over the Keystone XL pipeline, the bill additionally would obviate the need for a presidential permit to construct liquid and natural gas pipelines, as well as electric transmission facilities that cross U.S. borders. TransCanada Corp.'s pending KXL application, however, is excluded from the provision.
Like earlier House bills, the measure would impose deadlines on federal agencies for considering applications to export LNG. For such exports to Canada and Mexico, authorities would be required to grant such applications within 30 days for submission.
The bill also would require the Energy Department to make a final decision on LNG export applications within 30 days of completion of National Environmental Policy Act review requirements. It would grant federal appeals courts the jurisdiction to hear challenges to DOE's decisions in such cases.
While defending last year's administrative overhaul of his department's LNG application process, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has been open to discussions with lawmakers about legislative options for further accelerating the reviews.
Moniz is likely to be pressed on that point during Thursday's hearing, where he'll be the star witness.
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Senate Subpanel Approves Energy And Water Bill
May 19, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Daniel Bush
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee today passed by voice vote an energy and water spending bill that would boost funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, basic energy research and emergency drought relief efforts in the West.
The bill does not include funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository or a provision to stop a controversial Obama administration water rule, though Republican senators said they would try to add those measures during the amendment process.
The bill would provide $35.4 billion in fiscal 2016 for the Department of Energy, the Army Corps and other related agencies -- $1.2 billion more than current enacted levels, but $666 million less than President Obama's budget request.
"Governing is about setting priorities, and this legislation supports energy research, waterways and national security," Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said at the markup today. Alexander added that he and subpanel ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) "worked hard to create a bipartisan bill, and we've done that."
Under the bill, DOE energy programs would receive $10.5 billion, a $270 million boost over fiscal 2015 levels, but $1.1 billion less than the administration is seeking. The measure would provide a record $5.1 billion to the agency's Office of Science.
The corps would receive $5.5 billion, an increase of more than $800 million over the White House's budget request. The bill would provide $1.1 billion for the Bureau of Reclamation for water projects in the West. That funding includes $50 million for emergency drought aid for states like California that are struggling to cope with a yearslong drought.
In a break with the House, which passed its energy and water spending bill earlier this month, the Senate version does not contain language aimed at killing a controversial "Waters of the United States" rule that the Obama administration is finalizing to clarify which streams and wetlands fall under the Clean Water Act.
But Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said yesterday that he plans to introduce an amendment to block the rule when the full Senate Appropriations Committee takes up the bill Thursday. Hoeven's rider will likely draw fire from the White House, which threatened to veto the House's version of the spending bill over its WOTUS amendment, cuts to clean energy programs and other provisions.
The Senate's approach to nuclear waste storage and the Yucca Mountain repository also marked a stark contrast to the House, which approved $150 million to reopen the shuttered storage site.
Alexander appeared to avoid a showdown with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the most outspoken opponent of the Yucca Mountain repository, by leaving out funding for the stalled project and instead moving forward with a less controversial federal pilot program.
Alexander in a statement said he intends to leave that thorny issue for the amendment process, a decision that could culminate in the Senate voting on Yucca Mountain for the first time since 2002.
"The legislation Senator Feinstein and I worked to develop is a bipartisan starting point that creates a pilot program for consolidated storage and includes language that allows the U.S. Department of Energy to work with private storage facilities," the senator said. "Putting an end to our decades-long nuclear waste stalemate will involve completing Yucca Mountain, and I look forward to an open amendment process in the U.S. Senate and to working with the House to remove obstacles to nuclear power."
Republican Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, who has joined Reid in opposing Yucca, said during an interview today that leaving the project up to the amendments process on the Senate floor would give him and his colleagues a chance to vote it down. He also said he plans to meet with Alexander in the coming days and will discuss Yucca at that time.
The spending bill also includes a rider prohibiting the administration from changing the definition of fill material under the Clean Water Act, a step that could restrict strip mining activities.
The measure has been part of final congressional spending bills in recent years, but not in the Democratic-controlled Senate's initial drafts.
Its inclusion this time around is notable because even though Republicans control the Senate, Alexander has opposed mountaintop-removal mining and called for a redefinition of fill material.
Feinstein praised the bill but said she was concerned about sequestration caps that limited the increase in non-defense spending on energy and water projects. Of the $1.2 billion increase in overall spending proposed in the bill, just $8 million would go to non-defense programs.
Feinstein also expressed concern about the $345 million included in the bill for South Carolina's mixed oxide facility, a costly plant for converting plutonium into fuel for civilian nuclear plants that is strongly supported by that state's congressional delegation.
Noting the tendency for the expense of such projects to balloon, Feinstein said it made little sense to fund the project at a level that would incur additional costs at a later date.
"I know this is a sensitive subject," she said. "I know how our colleagues from that state care, and I know it employs about 2,000 people. But I don't know how we continue to fund a project which at the level we fund it only costs more and more."
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Splits Over Revenue Sharing Emerge In Energy Bill Supply Hearing
May 20, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Nick Juliano
It has been a long-standing goal of Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to open up more of the nation's coastline to oil and natural gas drilling and to give states a greater share of the revenues associated with offshore energy production, and a wide-ranging bill being assembled in her committee may be one avenue to do so.
A trio of offshore drilling revenue-sharing bills -- focused on the Arctic, Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic -- were considered yesterday at a hearing of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Murkowski leads. But they ran into sharp objections from committee Democrats and a representative of the Obama administration, suggesting Murkowski may have to moderate her ambitions in order to secure bipartisan support and win the president's signature.
The hearing also focused on various suggestions to ease hydropower development that were generally less controversial, an indication that they may more easily make it into a broader package. Several witnesses and senators touted hydropower's carbon-free profile, which they said would be an important ingredient for states and utilities to comply with U.S. EPA's impending Clean Power Plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.
The witnesses included Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Abigail Ross Hopper, who defended the administration's recently proposed drilling plan for 2017-2022. Hopper also noted the administration's objections to the trio of offshore drilling bills -- S. 1278, from Murkowski, to expand drilling and revenue sharing in the Arctic; S. 1276, from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), to authorize drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and raise an existing cap on revenue shared with Gulf states; and S. 1279, from Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), to expand drilling in the South Atlantic and split revenues between the federal government and four East Coast states.
Hopper objected to the bills' call for additional drilling beyond what is envisioned in the current five-year plan without relying on the Interior secretary's "discretion" to determine whether such activity was appropriate. And while she said the administration appreciates the concerns of coastal states that would like to see additional drilling revenues, she defended the proposal to redirect some of the existing share provided by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act "to programs that provide broad natural resource, watershed and conservation benefits to the nation."
Murkowski said she was "discouraged" by Hopper's reaction to the bills and the administration's proposal to redirect existing revenues away from Gulf states, an approach the senator said reversed a previous commitment from Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to "work with" coastal lawmakers on a bipartisan revenue-sharing proposal.
"To hear your comments that effectively the way you want to work with us is to redirect existing revenue payments ... not to the states that are impacted, but basically to pull the rug out from under the promise that was already made, is a little bit disconcerting," Murkowski said.
Murkowski's approach to the Interior Department stood in contrast to the relationship she has developed with the Department of Energy and Secretary Ernest Moniz, who testified before the committee earlier this year. While Murkowski has said she is looking to DOE's Quadrennial Energy Review as a template for parts of her energy bill, including its infrastructure provisions, she also has repeatedly tussled with Interior over other issues, including her long-running push to authorize a gravel road through a wildlife reserve to a remote Alaskan village and the administration's approach to energy exploration.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee's ranking member, separately criticized the revenue-sharing push, noting that previous such proposals have been found to increase the deficit, raising objections from budget hawks. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) also objected to the focus on offshore drilling and revenue sharing, pointing to increased greenhouse gas emissions that would result from additional fossil fuel development and saying the committee's focus should be on clean technologies such as biomass and combined heat and power as well as energy efficiency.
Revenue-sharing proposals in previous years have "brought this committee to a standstill," Cantwell warned in her opening statement.
Still, Hopper was not ready to declare revenue sharing a poison pill for the administration's ability to support a broader energy bill.
"I think Senator Cantwell said it well that revenue sharing has always been a contentious issue in this committee. I think it would be premature to say that it would take any comprehensive energy package down," Hopper told reporters after the hearing. "I think it's one of the things obviously that's important to many of the senators, either pro or con. So I think it's likely to be in the nexus as she develops an energy package going forward."
Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon said revenue-sharing is "crucial to developing the infrastructure we need in the Arctic" and that Murkowski would "continue to work it until it becomes a reality." That said, a comprehensive energy bill is not the only option, Dillon added. Murkowski could also offer amendments to other must-pass pieces of legislation, seek to bring a revenue sharing bill to the floor on its own or attempt to use the appropriations process to change the policy.
Murkowski also is chairwoman of the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Interior Department, but Dillon declined to go into detail on how she could use a spending bill to change policy, given traditional resistance to using appropriations measures to enact authorization legislation.
Yesterday's hearing focused on energy supply, the third of four pillars on which Murkowski is building a comprehensive energy bill that she hopes to see win bipartisan backing and be signed into law for the first time since 2007. The committee already considered efficiency and infrastructure issues; next month will see a final hearing focused on "accountability and reform" at the Department of Energy.
Yesterday's agenda also included recently introduced legislation from Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and other Democrats to establish a renewable energy standard (RES) that would require 30 percent of energy that utilities provide by 2030 to come from sources such as wind and solar. The proposal (S. 1264) won an endorsement from the Natural Resources Defense Council but opposition from the American Public Power Association during the hearing.
In focusing on supply, Murkowski said her goal is an "all of the above" portfolio that would include fossil fuels and renewable energy, with a focus on keeping energy affordable and widely available.
The hearing agenda included several bills aimed at promoting hydropower, including Murkowski's S. 1236, which aims to streamline the licensing process and define hydropower as a renewable energy source for the sake of federal energy targets, and S. 1270 from Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) to extend an incentive program that gives dam owners who install new hydropower turbines payments for their production equivalent to the 2.3 cents per kilowatt-hour provided under the expired production tax credit for other types of renewable energy.
One witness, Franz Matzner of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he is wary of efforts to broadly define hydro as a source of renewable energy in the context of complying with state renewable energy standards because of its effect on other resources and susceptibility to drought conditions. But he stressed that it is an important source of clean energy.
American Public Power Association CEO Susan Kelly said hydro will be necessary for utilities to continue to provide reliable power as they transition their broader fleets in response to EPA's Clean Power Plan and other regulations causing some coal plants to shut down.
Murkowski noted that most people tend to think of massive projects like the Hoover Dam when they think of hydropower, but she said the reality is mostly smaller projects that are nonetheless difficult and time-consuming to permit. On that point, she found agreement on the other side of the aisle from Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
King, a former utility lawyer, has been among the committee members most involved in energy bill hearings to this point. He was the only ENR Committee member besides Murkowski who attended the duration of yesterday's hearing. While he asked few questions -- saying he was there mainly to learn -- King commiserated with the plight of hydro developers.
"Any permitting program that takes seven to 10 years and costs $150 million isn't a permitting program," King said. "It's an annuity for lawyers and consultants."
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More Time Needed to Analyze Electric Grid Provisions in House Bill, FERC, NERC Say
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corp. said they need more than three to four months to provide reliability analyses for rules that affect electricity reliability, as a House subcommittee has proposed in draft legislation.
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power held a hearing May 19 on a discussion draft of legislation that aims to update energy infrastructure and ensure energy resilience, reliability and security (89 DEN A-15, 5/8/15).
The energy reliability discussion draft will be included as part of a larger House energy bill expected to be introduced in the coming weeks, a committee staff member told Bloomberg BNA May 19.
A major focus of the hearing was on Section 1202 of the bill, which would require FERC, in coordination with NERC, to complete within three months an independent reliability analysis for any major proposed rule and within four months an analysis for any major final rule that affects electric utilities.
The analysis would have to assess the impacts of the rule on national, regional or local electricity reliability; fuel diversity; wholesale electricity market operation; and energy delivery and infrastructure.
Michael Barbee, director of FERC's Office of Electric Reliability, said it would be “very challenging” to meet this time frame.
Gerry Cauley, president and chief executive officer of NERC, expressed similar concerns, saying it takes, at a minimum, four months for short assessments and from six months to one year for longer assessments of more complex rules. NERC is a regulatory authority that works to ensure reliability of the bulk-power system in North America that works closely with FERC.
Members of the subcommittee acknowledged the time frame concerns and said they would consider revising the discussion draft to possibly provide four to six months for completion.
Groups Express Concern
In a second panel, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council raised concerns at the hearing about how large a role FERC and NERC would be playing in the analysis.
“I have many reservations about Section 1202,” Elgie Holstein, EDF senior director for strategic planning, said.
“Even though it's clearly intended to help ensure reliability, I believe it in fact does the reverse because it elevates the views of FERC and NERC, who certainly have a very important role in reliability, but they don't have the only role,” Holstein said.
He referred to a letter FERC sent to the Environmental Protection Agency May 15 in which FERC said it expects to play only a limited role if states adopt a reliability safety valve as part of implementation of the Clean Power Plan (96 DEN A-5, 5/19/15).
Holstein said that a “balance must be struck” between FERC providing input to rulemaking agencies, such as EPA, and involving market participants and state regulators.
“I think it would be a shame if we elevated FERC and NERC's role to the detriment to the other entities that play such an important role in reliability,” he said.
Meanwhile, John Moore, an NRDC senior attorney, said the entire Section 1202 is unnecessary.
“This provision is unnecessary because FERC jurisdictional grid regions already are required to assess the impacts of environmental standards on grid operations,” Moore said. “FERC, these grid regions and other reliability authorities also provide detailed review and analysis to agencies on rulemakings potentially affecting power plants.”
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California, 11 Other U.S. States, Foreign Jurisdictions Sign Pact on Climate Change
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a pact with leaders from 11 other state and provincial governments agreeing to cut emissions of greenhouse gases 80 percent to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 or achieve a per capita annual emissions goal of less than two metric tons by the same date.
The agreement aims to try to limit the increase in global average temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the warming threshold scientists have said would likely result in catastrophic climate disruptions.
“This global challenge requires bold action on the part of governments everywhere, “ Brown said in a written statement released shortly after announcing the memorandum of understanding that commits the subnational governments to working together to address climate change.
Washington, Oregon and Vermont are the three other U.S. states that signed the “Under 2 MOU.” Other signatories to the nonbinding agreement are Acre, Brazil; Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany; Catalonia, Spain; Wales, United Kingdom; Baja California and Jalisco, Mexico; and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario.
“Acting to reduce carbon pollution requires bold action at every level, and many of these actions must be done by local and state governments,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said in a written statement. “Today we join jurisdictions representing more than 100 million people and more than $4.5 trillion gross domestic product asking the world community to do its part and take decisive action this year.”
The agreement offers a “template” for international leaders in their work to draft a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December, Brown said.
Additional Partners to be Recruited
As part of the pact, the signatories agreed to recruit additional partners to sign the agreement ahead of the Paris talks.
“Governments at all levels must act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and bring the climate back into balance in the long run,” Winfried Kretschmann, the minister-president of Baden-Wurttemberg, said. “With this memorandum the signers agree to not wait for the consensus of the international community, but to lead decisively and by example in matters of climate protection.”
The agreement is similar to others California has signed with Mexico, China, Japan and other nations in that it outlines opportunities for sharing technology, scientific research and best practices to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy (85 DEN A-5, 5/4/15).
Also, the pact calls for the development of mid-term greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets to support the 2050 goals; collaboration on efforts to expand the use of zero-emissions vehicles; reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants like black carbon and methane; implementing measures to ensure consistent monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions; and assessing the impacts of climate change on communities.
Governors Issued Executive Orders
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) issued an executive order setting a goal to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. In April, Brown issued an order to cut emissions to 40 percent 1990 levels by 2030.
“This agreement confirms and advances the crucial role that states, provinces and regions play in the international effort to slash greenhouse gases and stabilize the world's climate,” California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary D. Nichols said in a written statement.
Nichols is currently in Paris and hosted a reception with the European partners at the Business and Climate Summit organized by the French chapters of the UN Global Compact.
“Today's announcement will help galvanize the groundswell of climate actions that is growing from every corner of the world,” Natural Resources Defense Council President Rhea Suh said in a written statement. “And it will build momentum for more ambitious national commitments at the international climate conference in Paris later this year.”
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As EPA Nears Final Decision On Ozone NAAQS, Groups Step Up Lobbying
May 19, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
As EPA nears a final decision on whether to revise its ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) and send the rule to the White House for pre-publication review, groups representing industries, advocates and others are stepping up their lobbying of agency officials to try and sway the rule to their preferred outcome.
The progressive think tank Center for Effective Government recently issued a report, “Gasping for Support,” that urges the agency to tighten the existing 75 parts per billion (ppb) standard down to 60 ppb in order to adequately protect public health, saying it could create up to $20 billion in health cost savings annually by 2025. EPA has proposed to revise the standard to a range between 65 and 70 ppb, but is taking comment on other levels.
Industry groups opposed to a stricter standard are countering that there is no scientific justification for tightening the NAAQS, and ramping up their warnings that a limit below 75 ppb will impose major economic harm. The American Petroleum Institute (API) May 15 launched an advertising campaign echoing those arguments.
The competing arguments over the standard signal the increased push by all sides to try and influence EPA's imminent decision on the final limit that it will choose for the updated NAAQS. EPA issued the proposed version of the rule in November and under a court-ordered deadline must issue a final rule by Oct. 1.
Once EPA selects the final NAAQS limit and completes writing the final regulation, it will then send it for mandatory White House Office of Management & Budget pre-publication review. The White House's review of the policy will create another chance for groups to again try and sway the outcome of the regulation, as outside groups such as API or environmentalists can meet with OMB to comment on rules under review.
EPA has projected that an ozone standard set at 70 ppb would create $6.4 to $13 billion in health benefits and an even-stricter limit of 65 ppb would generate between $19 and $38 billion in health benefits, compared to costs of $3.9 billion for a 70 ppb limit and $15 billion for a 65 ppb limit, EPA estimates. The agency bases the benefits on values such as avoidance of premature death, asthma attacks and missed work days.
The Center for Effective Government in its May 13 report urges EPA to set a 60 ppb standard, which it says would provide “vast benefits” compared to implementation of the 75 ppb standard. A 60 ppb NAAQS “would prevent up to 5,800 premature deaths, 2,100 hospital admissions for breathing problems, 6,600 asthma-related visits to the emergency room, and 1.7 million asthma attacks in children every year. This would save between $12-20 billion in health costs annually by 2025,” the report says.
But the group says federal funding for states' clean air programs has fallen by 21 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, undermining states' efforts to implement the NAAQS. “Congress should fund state and local air quality agencies at the 60 percent match level allowed by the Clean Air Act. This would provide over $600 million more per year for states to develop and implement programs necessary to meet air quality standards, expand their air pollution monitoring networks, tackle climate change, and step up enforcement of air quality requirements,” the report says.
Sources with the Center say the report is timed to coincide with May's National Asthma & Allergy Awareness month, because ozone is a known trigger for asthma attacks. The report also backs the American Lung Association's recent “State of the Air” report that called for a stricter ozone limit, sources say.
API's Opposition
API is countering the push for a stricter ozone standard with the May 15 launch of its major multimedia advertising campaign centered on the Washington, D.C., area and aimed at Obama administration policymakers, in which the group calls for EPA to leave the ozone NAAQS unchanged at 75 ppb.
On a conference call with reporters May 14 to discuss the campaign, Howard Feldman, senior director of regulatory and scientific affairs at API, said that “tightening of the standard wouldn't necessarily improve air quality any faster” than full implementation of the 2008 NAAQS would, but would come with huge economic cost.
API has previously warned that the ozone rule could be the most expensive ever promulgated by the federal government, especially if EPA opts for a level of 65 or 60 ppb. If EPA tightens the NAAQS, it could “constrain our economy and eliminate thousands of jobs,” Feldman said. The rule could place many more areas of the country in “nonattainment” with the standards, requiring them to impose costly pollution controls on industry. Areas may have to limit industrial expansion to avoid further damaging their air quality, Feldman said.
Ozone levels in the United States have fallen by 18 percent since 2000, so “the current standards are working. We should finish implementing them,” Feldman said. “[T]his issue is flying under the radar for some reason we don't understand,” he said, adding that “between now and October 1 is is important that people understand” the potential adverse impacts of the looming rule.
Feldman acknowledged that compared to other major environmental rules now under discussion, such as EPA's greenhouse gas rules for existing power plants, the ozone rule is garnering less attention. Nonetheless, “this is a critical issue for us to be working on,” Feldman said. “This is in the top handful of issues for the Institute.”
Explaining the timing of the advertising campaign, Feldman told Inside EPA after the call that, “There is nothing specific to this week. API believes that it is critically important that the public and decision-makers understand the significance of this rulemaking before any final decisions are made by EPA.”
Feldman added, “Similar to other significant rules, I expect that we will meet with OMB at some point after the rule is sent there for review.”
EPA's last effort at tightening the ozone NAAQS failed in September 2011 when President Obama intervened to prevent the agency, then led by Administrator Lisa Jackson, from finalizing a proposal to set the standard at 70 ppb. The White House at the time said that because that ozone review was discretionary, and not mandated under the five-year review cycle required by the Clean Air Act, there was no need to create additional implementation issues for industry by changing the standard in between five-year reviews.
That decision was widely seen by critics as political, designed to minimize controversy ahead of the 2012 presidential election. But the pending rule is mandatory to meet the five-year review requirement and does not coincide with a reelection bid. However, some have suggested the Obama administration's focus on climate change as a legacy issue means the White House is less focused on addressing ozone.
SIP Deadlines
Meanwhile, a federal district court in California in a recent order granted environmentalists' request to set hard deadlines for EPA to issue findings that a number of states failed to submit state implementation plans (SIPs) showing how they intend to curb ozone-forming interstate pollution.
The SIPs -- blueprints for how states will meet the 2008 NAAQS for ozone -- are required under the Clean Air Act to implement the law's “good neighbor” provision.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in its May 7 order grants in part the motions for summary judgment of environmentalists in Sierra Club v. Gina McCarthy, a case challenging the agency's failure to issue the findings of failure to submit the SIPs by statutory deadlines.
Such findings trigger a two-year clock for the state to submit and EPA to approve a SIP, or the agency to issue a federal implementation plan (FIP) directly regulating the state instead.
EPA's policy on pollutant transport has been in flux during protracted litigation over the agency's emissions trading programs, such as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), a program that aims to meet EPA's earlier 1997 ozone standard of 84 ppb, in addition to fine particulate matter standards. EPA and states are now in talks about a successor rule to implement the 2008 ozone NAAQS that might directly impose FIPs on states.
In the interim, however, the Supreme Court's 2014 ruling upholding CSAPR in EPA, et al. v. EME Homer City Generation, L.P., et al confirmed that states must submit good neighbor SIPs regardless of whether EPA has first defined for them what their “significant contribution” is to the problems of downwind states meeting NAAQS. The California district court orders EPA to issue the necessary findings by June 30 for Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.
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Trucks Powered by Natural Gas: Help or Hindrance to Emissions-Reduction Efforts?
May 19, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Erica E. Phillips
As a strengthening U.S. economy has boosted freight volumes, more commercial trucks are taking to the open road—all of them subject to new, stricter federal emissions standards.
So, are trucks powered by natural gas instead of diesel an effective way to reduce emissions? A new study urges caution until methane emissions in the “well-to-pump” production of natural gas can be reduced.
The study—published this week in “Environmental Science & Technology” and conducted by researchers with nonprofit advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund—found that shifting to natural gas from diesel in the nation’s trucking sector “leads to damages to the climate” for anywhere from 50 to 90 years, depending on the type of natural-gas engine.
Over time, methane—which is released from wells, fuel tanks, and other points in the natural gas production process—has much stronger warming effects than CO2, researchers said.
“Natural gas trucks have the potential to reduce overall climate impacts compared to diesel,” study co-author Jonathan Camuzeaux said in a statement, “but only if we clean up the highly potent greenhouse gas emissions from the systems that produce and deliver the fuel.”
Jason Mathers of EDF added that policy makers shouldn’t promote switching to natural gas “until we are more certain about the magnitude of methane loss and have acted sufficiently to reduce emissions and improve natural gas engine efficiency.”
In a statement, Matthew Godlewski, president of Natural Gas Vehicles for America, a group representing companies that produce natural gas and natural gas-powered vehicles, engines and equipment, said the study “clearly demonstrates that there is a role for natural gas in addressing climate change.” NGVAmerica pointed to recent academic studies finding that methane emissions have been decreasing at hydraulically-fractured wells and in local distribution systems in recent years.
Mr. Godlewski called the EDF study “confusing” because it was conducted apart from research efforts on which the two groups are collaborating to investigate the same issue. One of those efforts, known as the “Pump to Wheels Methane Leakage” study, seeks “to end speculation about actual in-use methane leaks from natural gas stations and vehicles,” Mr. Godlewski said in the statement.
In a post on its website, EDF addressed the studies that are in progress, saying they were “distinct and separate” from the one published this week, which was meant to be “complementary” to other research projects, including “Pump to Wheels.”
About 2.1 million heavy-duty trucks handle the nation’s freight hauling, only a small percentage of which are powered by natural gas. And while demand for natural gas vehicles is growing, it’s not happening as quickly as some had anticipated.
Forecasters with ACT Research LLC said they expect a big increase in the number of new heavy-duty trucks this year: 338,000 compared with about 297,000 added in 2014. Only about 3% of new trucks will run on natural gas—roughly the same level as last year.
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Western Governors Group Endorses House Legislative Approach to Coal Ash Regulation
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Western Governors’ Association has thrown its weight behind Rep. David McKinley's (R-W.Va.) legislation (H.R. 1734) that would enable states to draft, implement and enforce their own permitting programs for coal ash management and disposal.
In a letter to House and Senate leadership, Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-Nev.) said the House approach would address “problematic regulatory confusion” created by the Environmental Protection Agency's final rule on coal ash.
“Legislation such as H.R. 1734 recognizes that states are in the best position to implement EPA's rule for [coal ash] regulation and reinforces the appropriate role of states in regulation, oversight and enforcement,” Sandoval, who chairs the WGA, wrote in the May 15 letter. “[The bill] would codify much of EPA's final rule and would statutorily address the regulatory shortcoming of the final rule. [Coal ash] producers and managers would operate under a single regulatory framework and states would be empowered to enforce permitting requirements.”
A spokeswoman later told Bloomberg BNA the letter was representative of the group of Western governors and not necessarily each individual member. There are 19 governors in the association.
The EPA opted in its final rule (80 Fed. Reg. 21,302) to regulate coal ash under the nonhazardous waste provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
States Urged to Adopt U.S. Minimum Criteria
States are strongly encouraged to adopt the minimum federal criteria, but enforcement is left to citizen suit enforcement, raising the possibility of dual regulatory requirements and confusion for the utility industry, advocates of the legislation say.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced McKinley's legislation April 15 onto the full chamber for consideration. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), chairman of the subcommittee spearheading the bill, expects it will pass the House before August (73 DEN A-15, 4/16/15).
Several senators, led by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), have also indicated an interest in advancing coal ash management legislation, but they have yet to settle on their preferred method of doing so.
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Hearing on Waters of U.S. Rule, Bill Focuses On EPA Authority to Interpret Jurisdiction
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The question of whether the Environmental Protection Agency or Congress has the authority to interpret the geographic scope of Clean Water Act protections was debated at a hearing before a Senate panel May 19 as the Obama administration prepares to release its major rule clarifying the regulatory reach of the law.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife heard testimony about legislation (S. 1140) directing the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rewrite the so-called waters of the U.S. rule (RIN No. 2040-AF30).
The joint rulemaking at issue seeks to clarify the scope of Clean Water Act jurisdiction over waters and wetlands consistent with U.S. Supreme Court and associated appellate opinions.
Patrick Parenteau, senior counsel at the Vermont Law School Environment and Natural Resources Law Clinic, said the agency does have the authority to interpret the scope of the Clean Water Act. He was responding to a question from Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), chairman of the subcommittee, about whether that power lies with EPA or the Congress.
Susan Metzger, assistant secretary for the Kansas Department of Agriculture, said the proposed rule, as the EPA is interpreting it, would expand federal jurisdiction over waters that may not be currently covered by the law. Moreover, she said, many states have their own protections in place for waters whose protection under the federal law is uncertain.
She reiterated as she did before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee in March that the proposed rule would increase federally protected waters in Kansas by 460 percent over the currently federally protected 340,000 stream miles(57 DEN A-7, 3/25/15)
Bill Would Require Rule Rewrite
The Federal Water Quality Protection Act (S. 1140) was introduced April 30 by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and is co-sponsored by Sullivan and a number of other senators.
It would require the agencies to write a new clean water rule no later than Dec. 31, 2016, and to include only streams in the new rule that have enough flow to transport pollutants at levels that would impair traditional navigable waters.
Moreover, the bill would require the agencies to set quantifiable measures of flow that would be based on volume, duration and frequency and be established following notice and comment (84 DEN A-19, 5/1/15).
Bill Called ‘Bad Law.'
At the hearing, Parenteau testified on behalf of the proposed waters of the U.S. rule, and against S. 1140, calling it “bad science, bad law and bad policy.”
He said the bill adopts flow as the basis for establishing jurisdiction and rejects the significant nexus test articulated by Justice Anthony Kennedy in the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Rapanos v. United States, (547 U.S. 715, 62 ERC 1481 (U.S. 2006)).
This is despite the fact that seven federal courts of appeal have used the significant nexus test as either the controlling or the exclusive opinion in determining jurisdiction over wetlands, while two courts of appeal have used the Kennedy test or the Justice Antonin Scalia test that looks for relatively permanent flow of water as the basis for affirming jurisdiction, he said.
Kennedy Stopped Short of Quantitative Metric
Kennedy suggested the use of the significant nexus test to affirm jurisdiction over isolated waters and wetlands to downstream navigable waters but stopped short of prescribing or directing the agencies to come up with a quantitative metric for the test.
Metzger said Kansas supports S. 1140 because it would require the agencies to use flow that can be measured to establish jurisdiction. She emphasized that waters that aren't federally protected are still protected by states.
She told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the subcommittee's ranking member, that states are adequately equipped to protect their own waters even though the pollution may be coming downstream from other states.
Whitehouse pointed out that states, particularly coastal states, can only rely on the Clean Water Act to protect their waters from downstream pollution. He accused the Republican Senate of targeting the EPA and pursuing an anti-environment agenda.
Protecting Waters
“There is a right way and a wrong way to protect waters,” Barrasso said, and he added the agencies are pursuing the “wrong way.” He provided a list of 150 national and regional organizations, representing the Associated General Contractors of America, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Home Builders, Edison Electric Institute, and the USA Rice Federation, that support a rewrite of the rule in line with the directions outlined in the legislation.
Meanwhile, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told the subcommittee that he has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the EPA violated federal lobbying laws by engaging in a grassroots campaign to promote the rulemaking.
At the hearing, Inhofe said he sought the GAO investigation following a New York Times article on the EPA's tactics.
Spokeswoman Defends Agency
EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia defended the agency's actions in a May 19 blog that she shared with Bloomberg BNA.
“EPA is required to inform the public about environmental challenges we're working to address and our programs and operations,” the blog post said. “This includes using our broad authority under the Environmental Education Act as well as under many environmental statutes to conduct outreach and education. We use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, just like any other organization does to stay connected and inform people across the country about our activities.”
Purchia emphasized that none of the social media was used for or solicited comment in a rebuttal to the allegations leveled by Barrasso and Inhofe during the hearing.
The White House Office of Management and Budget began reviewing the draft final rule April 6. The agencies are expected to issue the final rule by the end of the month.
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Barrasso Sharply Questions State Dept. Nominee On Climate Writings
May 20, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Brittany Patterson
Jennifer Ann Haverkamp faced a barrage of hostile questions from a top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her confirmation hearing yesterday.
Following a long career in both government and nonprofit environmental policy work, Haverkamp was nominated by President Obama last August to lead the State Department's bureau responsible for foreign policy on climate change, oceans and wildlife trafficking (Greenwire, Aug. 29, 2014).
The bureau -- known as OES for Oceans, Environment and Science -- has taken on new importance as Secretary of State John Kerry pushes to make both oceans and climate change priorities of his tenure.
Most of the questions -- although broad in topic range -- seemed friendly enough, but a slew of inquiries near the end of the hearing by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who was acting as chairman, had a harder edge.
Citing a blog post Haverkamp wrote in 2012 while she was director of the Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF) international climate program, Barrasso asked about her thoughts on the emissions-heavy agriculture sector and her statement that "[t]he major emitters' paucity of vision, ambition and urgency has brought us to the brink of catastrophe."
"How has the American farmer, who you state are responsible for 'a substantial share of the emissions that cause climate change,' brought us, as you say, to the brink of catastrophe?" Barrasso wondered.
Referencing another blog post, Barrasso asked Haverkamp about her position on wealthy countries contributing financially to developing nations most affected by climate change, which was a topic of conversation during the international climate talks in Doha, Qatar, in 2012, the focus of the blog post in question.
"It sounds like you believe American agriculture is partially to blame for climate change ... poultry growers in Delaware, cotton farmers in Tennessee, cattle ranchers in Wyoming," he said. "Are they responsible, do they owe money for the loss and damage that they have under your phraseology 'inflicted' on developing nations because of climate change?"
Haverkamp remained composed and offered examples of different ways in which farmers can change their practices to decrease emissions, an area she worked on during her near-decade at the EDF.
"I think that one reason that climate change is such a profound challenge is there are so many different contributions to the problem and there aren't easy solutions," she added. "It's something that requires a lot of effort and contributions from everyone."
During the nearly two-hour-long hearing, three of the other four nominees on the agenda faced at least some questions relating to environmental and energy issues. Barrasso opened the question portion of the hearing by asking Mileydi Guilarte, who was nominated for the position of U.S. alternate executive director of the Inter-American Development Bank, if the bank was taking steps to fund natural gas projects in Latin America, where energy prices are steep.
Later, he asked Marcia Denise Occomy, nominated to be U.S. director of the African Development Bank, if she would support fossil fuel energy projects in Africa.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) took a gentler tone and asked Haverkamp how, if confirmed, she would implement President Obama's 2013 wildlife trafficking initiative and what she envisions OES's priorities would be with space.
Haverkamp outlined three "themes" that she would prioritize if confirmed as head of OES -- investments, innovation and inspiration.
She said she would develop partnerships to strengthen the investments Kerry has made to develop a global strategy on oceans and make climate change an international priority (Greenwire, June, 16, 2014).
She added that she would seek to leverage advances in science and technology and focus on "science diplomacy," or collaborating with international researchers, and use the talents of OES staff to further international efforts on climate change, health, science and space.
"I am excited to tackle the staggering pressures bearing down on natural resources, from the oceans' depths to the ice-capped poles, to the savannas and to outer space, and to help shape foreign diplomacy in these areas for years to come," she said in closing.
Barrasso said members of the committee have until the close of business tomorrow to submit written questions and asked the witnesses to respond promptly. There is no set date for the committee to vote on the nominees.
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Inhofe Seeks GAO Investigation Of EPA's Campaign To Promote CWA Rule
May 19, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the environment panel, is asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to launch an investigation into EPA's campaign to promote support for its imminent Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, citing reports that industry officials believe the push might have violated federal lobbying laws.
The senator announced his plan to seek a GAO review of the claims, which were reported by the New York Times, at a May 19 Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) water panel hearing on a bill to force EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to scrap their imminent final rule to define the water law's scope. The legislation, S. 1140, would force the agencies to conduct an extensive new round of public consultation to inform a new proposed CWA rule.
At the markup, Inhofe cited the Times' May 18 article that says EPA crafted a plan to build political push-back on criticism of the rule with the help of environmental organizations and a grass-roots organization affiliated with President Obama, which the article said is “a campaign that tests the limits of federal lobbying law.”
“I've asked GAO to look into the matter,” said Inhofe, one of several GOP lawmakers who criticized the proposed version of the rule issued in April 2014 as unlawfully expanding the water law's reach.
But EPA in a statement says the agency “is required to inform the public about environmental challenges we’re working to address and our programs and operations. This includes using our broad authority under the Environmental Education Act as well as under many environmental statutes to conduct outreach and education.”
EPA said that it uses social media tools such as Twitter “just like any other organization does to stay connected and inform people across the country about our activities. EPA has used social media to educate people about the importance of streams and wetlands and the importance of clarifying protection under the Clean Water Act.”
The statement adds that, “None of the social media activity ever asked for or solicited public comment on the rule or provided a link to the official docket for public comment. These communications simply directed the recipient to the general webpage” about the CWA jurisdiction rule on the agency's website.
“The public outreach effort to increase awareness and support of EPA’s proposed Clean Water Rule was also entirely legal under the Anti-Lobbying Act. This Act does not prohibit agencies from seeking input from the public on a rulemaking or restrict the agencies from educating or informing the public on a rulemaking under development,” the agency says, rejecting the suggesting its violated lobbing laws with its outreach.
“The EPA’s effort to increase awareness and support of EPA’s proposed Clean Water Rule was not related to any legislative proposal in Congress or any state legislatures. Rather, it related to the EPA’s own proposed rule and its importance to public health and the environment. And, at no point did the EPA -- explicitly or implicitly -- encourage the public to contact Congress or any state legislature,” the agency says.
Pending Legislation
Several senators used the EPW Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife Subcommittee's markup to reiterate their concerns about the scope of the CWA rule and the need to force EPA to scrap the final version of the policy.
The regulation has been undergoing White House Office of Management & Budget mandatory pre-publication review since April 6, but reports suggest it could be released this week.
Republican senators say S. 1140 is necessary to correct what was a flawed rulemaking process that overreaches the statutory definition of waters governed by the CWA and a failure by EPA and the Corps to properly consult with states before issuing the proposal, resulting in a rule that GOP lawmakers say will overburden states.
EPA in its statement defends its “unprecedented outreach effort” on the rule “that included holding more than 400 meetings across the country and visiting farms in nine states. The input helped us understand the genuine concerns and interests of a wide range of stakeholders and think through options to address them.”
The statement cites a recent EPA blog post by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in which she says that “key changes made to the proposed rule were actually driven in large part by outreach to agriculture, local government, states, and utilities.”
Critics of the proposed version of the rule however maintain their claims that the outreach was unsatisfactory. The pending Senate bill, S. 1140, introduced April 30 by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), would set a Dec. 31, 2016 deadline for EPA and the Corps to issue a revised rule after lengthy consultation with states and other stakeholders and outlines the types of waters that would and would not be subject to CWA requirements.
At the hearing, Barrasso asked Mark Pifher, of Colorado Springs Utilities, whether the rule as proposed could potentially slow the pace of water resources development projects needed to boost infrastructure to manage water shortage in the Western United States, to which Pifher said, “it may well have an effect.”
GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan (AK), chairman of the EPW water panel, asked Susan Metzger, an assistant secretary with the Kansas Department of Agriculture, whether the rule as proposed by the agencies would fit with the longstanding CWA policy of preserving a role for states to govern their own waterbodies.
Metzger responded that if proper consultation with states on a proposed rule had been conducted, it could have helped ensure that the policy better addressed preservation of state rights.
S. 1140 has the support of three Democratic senators: Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND) and Joe Manchin III (WV), along with 24 GOP co-sponsors. But EPW water subcommittee members Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), voiced strong opposition to the bill at the hearing.
Whitehouse said the bill would force states that receive downstream sources of pollution to rely other other states to police polluters, saying, “That's not proper federalism, that’s not why we set up the federal government to begin with.”
House lawmakers on May 12 approved in a 261-155 vote H.R. 1732, a similar bill that would force EPA and the Corps to withdraw and re-propose the rule, though the President has threatened to veto the bill.
Senate Efforts
Asked by Inside EPA about the potential for a similar veto threat on S. 1140, Sullivan said, “If the President wants to veto this bill, he needs to look at the amendment that passed during the budget process,” referring to a policy rider offered by Barrasso that received 59 votes -- one shy of the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was absent from voting, but the senator has criticized the jurisdiction proposal and would be expected to join the 59 senators -- making 60 votes in opposition to the rule. Sullivan said EPW will likely markup the bill “soon” as they would like to move it quickly given the rule's likely imminent release.
Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee's energy and water panel in a May 19 markup approved its fiscal year 2016 spending bill. The legislation was seen as a potential vehicle to attach a rider blocking EPA's CWA rule, but a press release from the subcommittee majority suggests that the only policy provision inserted affecting EPA bars any changes to the definition of “fill material” and “discharge of fill material” under the water law.
Environmentalists oppose legislative efforts to block the rule, and in a statement the League of Conservation Voters' Legislative Representative Madeleine Foote faulted the EPW hearing and a separate May 19 Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship hearing that included criticism of EPA's CWA jurisdiction rule.
“Today’s attacks on the Clean Water Rule put these senators at odds with the vast majority of voters, who care about safe drinking water. In addition to being unpopular, the attacks on the rule are completely unfounded, and could put the drinking water of one in three Americans at risk,” Foote said of the two hearings. She cited recent polling unveiled by LCV that finds “nearly 80 percent of voters support moving forward with the rule, while 69 percent would judge their Senator less favorably if they voted to block the rule.”
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Groups Jockeying To Shape EPA Water Rule
May 20, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
More than 100 advocates representing dozens of industry groups, companies and environmental organizations are flocking to the White House in a last-ditch effort to influence controversial regulations that would redefine the reach of the federal government’s water pollution enforcement.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has in recent days disclosed 16 meetings about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal since early April, when the OMB started its final regulatory review of the plan.The people lobbying on the rule represented residential developers, utilities, manufacturers, miners, farmers, and environmental and conservation groups, among others.
The meetings are a chance for lobbyists to influence development of the EPA’s contentious “waters of the United States” rule, which the Obama administration plans to make final soon.
Congressional Republicans want the proposal scrapped. They deride the rule as a massive federal overreach that would put the government in charge of puddles, dry creek beds, ditches, man-made ponds, occasionally wet land and other areas that do not need federal water quality standards.
Though many business groups echo that criticism, their participation in the White House meetings signals an effort to help shape the rule’s final language if they can’t stop it altogether.
“What we were hoping to get out of the meetings is a clear understanding on the part of the White House staff, the EPA and the Corps of Engineers what the practical implications of this expansion would be,” said Jerry Howard, chief executive officer of the National Association of Home Builders.
His group brought construction companies from areas including the Southwest and central Florida to say that expanding federal authority could require federal permits for routine construction activities.
“We brought in people with real-world experience to show what the real-world problems would be,” he said. “It’s a very convoluted process to get a building permit in every jurisdiction in America.”
Farmers and ranchers, meanwhile, are seeking to protect exemptions for agriculture that ensure ditches, ponds and other common agricultural activities are not newly regulated.
On the other side, environmentalists are arguing in favor of the most stringent possible protections for streams, ponds and wetlands to ensure downstream water protection.
Navis Bermudez, deputy legislative director at the Southern Environmental Law Center, participated in a meeting with other environmental groups to make sure that certain isolated ponds are covered by the rule, which was not clear in the draft proposal.
“We just reiterated to the folks we met with there to make the case that the EPA could go further than they had in their draft rule and there was enough scientific evidence to include these types of waters in waters covered,” she said.
OMB and other administration officials are obligated to take meetings with stakeholders who request them during the review process. Officials representing the administration rarely speak or give any other indications about what will be in the final rule.
The American Forest and Paper Association participated in meetings with other business groups that are worried the EPA’s rule could cover man-made manufacturing ponds at paper mills and elsewhere that are isolated.
“We informed them that water is an important component of our manufacturing process and that mills are very often sighted by water bodies,” Schwartz said. “And that because of these expansive definitions, there’s uncertainty that’s created by the proposed rule, specifically with respect to the waters on our facilities that are not clearly exempt by the wastewater treatment exemption.”
The fight centers on the reach of the Clean Water Act, which sets standards for water quality that apply to navigable waters.
Upstream waterways must be protected to ensure that pollution does not go downstream. But for decades, the federal government has been wrestling with how far to go and what the law allows.
Environmentalists, sportsmen’s groups and conservationists sought to counter businesses’ attacks on the rule and argue that without it, important bodies of water will be at risk.
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership brought in local, regional and national sportsmen’s groups to argue that stream headwaters and wetlands support fish, birds and other wildlife that are essential to outdoor recreation and hunting.
Jimmy Hague, director of the group’s Center for Water Resources, said the draft rule was pretty good but could be stronger in protecting wetlands.
“The message going into OMB meetings and our public comments essentially has been ‘good job with the tributaries discussions,’ but when it comes to some of these wetlands the waterfowl depend upon, the science points to a more definitive treatment than what they did in the proposed rule,” he said.
As the OMB met with stakeholders, congressional Republicans and other opponents of the rule worked to undermine it.
In the Senate, opponents are focusing on a bill that would repeal the rule and give the EPA specific instructions and a deadline to rewrite it in a way that protects farmers and ranchers from regulation.The House passed a bill last week to overturn the regulation and stop the EPA from making it final
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Whitehouse to Unveil Carbon Fee Bill in June With Hopes of Boosting Climate Debate
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), one of the leading climate change action advocates in the Senate, will announce carbon fee legislation during a June 10 event at the American Enterprise Institute with the aim of spurring a “real debate” on how to address climate change, he said in a May 18 floor speech.
Legislation introduced by Whitehouse in late 2014—likely the basis for this year's proposal—would require large greenhouse gas emitters to pay a fee of $42 for every ton of carbon pollution they emit. All revenue collected from the fee would be returned to U.S. taxpayers through a number of possible means, including economic assistance to low-income families, tax cuts and infrastructure investments (224 DEN A-3, 11/20/14).
“Pricing carbon corrects the market failure that lets polluters push the cost of air pollution onto everybody else,” Whitehouse said. “A carbon fee is a market-based tool aligned with conservative free-market values.”
The support of religious leaders, senior U.S. military figures and citizens also may change the political calculus behind the issue and leaves prospects for comprehensive climate legislation “actually pretty good,” Whitehouse said. He also said the support of major companies for climate action, including Apple Inc., Google Inc., Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp., also would help the overall chances for congressional action.
“One day, there will be a reckoning [for climate change deniers],” Whitehouse said. “There always is.”
Delivered Weekly Floor Speech
Whitehouse delivered his 100th weekly Senate floor speech on the issue of climate change May 18. He said there are Republicans senators—Whitehouse named Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Lindsay Graham (S.C.) and Johnny Isakson (Ga.) as specific examples—with whom progress on climate change can be made.
Senior Senate Democrats, including Sens. Harry Reid (Nev.), Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.), thanked the Rhode Island Democrat for his efforts following the speech and vowed continued support for action to address climate change.
“Very few of us take to the floor each week to stoke the fire on a single issue and to inspire others to action,” Schumer said. “That is what Senator Whitehouse has done on one of the defining issues of our time: climate change... I hope for his sake and for all of our sakes that this body takes his words to heart.”
Schumer Seen Maintaining Support
Schumer, who is expected to take over as leader of the Democratic caucus after Reid retires in 2016, hasn't been seen as an especially forceful advocate for action on climate change, but observers nevertheless believe he will maintain strong support for climate action as leader (65 DEN A-1, 4/6/15).
Boxer, ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, echoed praise for Whitehouse and said she believes Democrats will “win this battle” on the need for climate action.
“It is not going to be too late,” Boxer said. “I can assure him, as long as I am here and even when I am not, I will be echoing many of the things he is saying.”
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Pennsylvania Governor Seeks Voluntary Steps By Railroads to Boost Oil Shipment Safety
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
The railroad companies CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp. should carry out the voluntary safety initiatives that Midwest operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) has taken for crude-by-rail shipments, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) said in public letters to the two companies May 19.
The requests follow a letter Wolf wrote to President Barack Obama on Feb. 27 expressing concern about the safety of increasing amounts of Bakken crude oil being transported into the state. Pennsylvania estimates that 60 trains to 70 trains per day pass through the state carrying Bakken crude (50 DEN A-1, 3/16/15).
In e-mailed statements to Bloomberg BNA, both companies said they had already met with the governor to discuss railroad issues, including the safe transportation of crude oil.
In the letters, Wolf expressed “continuing concern about the risks of a crude-by-rail derailment, tank car breach and subsequent explosion,” citing recent derailments in Dubuque, Iowa, on Feb. 4; Mt. Carbon, W.Va., on Feb. 16; Galena, Ill., on March 5; and Heimdal, N.D., on May 6.
The most recent derailments all involved new generation CPC-1232 tank cars traveling below 40 miles per hour, Wolf's letters said.
Before Amtrak train No. 188 derailed in Philadelphia on May 12, killing eight people, there had been at least four train derailments in Pennsylvania since January 2014 (41 DEN A-4, 3/3/15).
Railroads Don't Own Tank Cars
In e-mails to Bloomberg BNA May 19, representatives from both CSX and Norfolk Southern said they haul, but don't own, the tank cars carrying crude oil into Pennsylvania.
“The tank cars used to transport crude oil are generally owned or leased by the shippers, not CSX,” company spokesman Rob Doolittle told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail May 19. “Under our Common Carrier obligation, we are required to accept for shipment any freight consigned to us in the proper Federally approved container.”
Dave Pidgeon, manager of public relations at Norfolk Southern (NS) Corp., also said the company doesn't own the tank cars in which crude oil is transported.
“They are owned or leased by the shippers,” Pidgeon told Bloomberg BNA, adding that the common carrier obligation “means we have no choice. We have to haul hazmat, including crude oil. If a customer gives us a tank car which meets current federal safety standards, we have to haul it.”
Safety Suggestions
New safety measures that BNSF adopted and Wolf suggested include lowering speeds of shale crude oil trains to 35 miles per hour when traveling through large municipalities, increasing rail detection testing frequencies along critical waterways and increasing the number of hot box detectors (HBD) on crude routes that run aside waterways by spacing them 10 miles apart, rather than the current industry standard of 40 miles.
In response to a question from Bloomberg BNA about CSX adopting the suggested safety measures, Doolittle said in an additional e-mail: “CSX has adopted many new practices and standards to help ensure the safety of the transportation of crude oil and other hazardous materials.
“Just some of the major steps in recent months are new speed limits in high-threat cities, increased and more comprehensive track inspections, thoughtful study and proposals on new tank car standards, unique notification and response technology for communities and safety officials, and specialized training of responders. We will continue to collaborate with other stakeholders to identify and implement the best, safest solutions to enhance the safety of transporting flammable liquids and all the freight we carry,” Doolittle said.
The voluntary measures Wolf requested would be in addition to new standards developed by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration for the safe rail transport of flammable liquids, a final rule that the U.S. Department of Transportation announced May 1 (85 DEN A-14, 5/4/15).
Railroads may be able to identify and adopt additional voluntary safety measures on top of federal standards, according to Allan Zarembski, director of the University of Delaware's railroad engineering and safety program.
Lower Speeds, Improved Inspections Urged
In a conference call held by the governor's office May 19, Zarembski said that lower speeds and improved inspection techniques could help.
“We do know from various research that's been done that a lower rate of speed will further reduces risk of a breach in the event of a derailment,” he said. Wolf announced in April that he had hired Zarembski to evaluate Pennsylvania's freight system and suggest ways to reduce risk.
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Lawsuit by Small Railroads Consolidated With Oil Company Case on Crude-by-Rail Rule
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
With 49 days left to sue the Transportation Department over its final rule governing movement of flammable liquids by rail, the courts are a flurry with actions over crude-by-rail issues.
Smaller railroad companies filed a suit against the final rule, and the suit was consolidated May 18 with a challenge by oil companies.
Meanwhile, environmental groups moved May 18 to end a lawsuit from 2014 over use of older tank cars in crude oil transportation and will move forward with a later lawsuit over the final rule (RIN 2137-AE91), which was published May 8 (80 Fed. Reg. 26,644).
These lawsuits challenge various parts of the rule issued by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The rule imposes more stringent tank car requirements, speed limits and other controls for certain trains carrying large amounts of Class 3 flammable liquids, including crude oil and ethanol.
The final rule was announced May 1 (85 DEN A-14, 5/4/15).
Rule Addresses Increasing Derailments
The rule addresses the increasing occurrences of derailments of trains carrying crude oil, which has occurred alongside increased production in regions without adequate pipelines to transport crude oil to refineries. These incidents include the July 2013 derailment of an oil train in Lac Megantic, Quebec, that killed 42 people and left five missing.
Other groups who have yet to file lawsuits have also indicated opposition to the final rule. These groups have until July 7 to challenge the rule under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association challenged the rule May 11 in a petition for review filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
On May 18, an American Petroleum Institute lawsuit, also filed May 11 in the D.C. Circuit, was consolidated with the one filed by the short line association (American Short Line and Regional Railroad Ass'n v. PHMSA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1132, cases consolidated, 5/18/15; 91 DEN A-9, 5/12/15).
Environmental Groups Drop One Suit
Additionally, ForestEthics and the Sierra Club, which are represented by Earthjustice, stipulated to dismissal of a previous lawsuit filed in December 2014 that alleged the Transportation Department inappropriately allowed older tank cars to remain in crude oil rail service.
The case, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, had been stayed through mid-May, based on when the PHMSA final rule was expected (Sierra Club v. United States, 9th Cir., No. 14-73682, stipulated motion to dismiss, 5/18/15).
If this case is closed, that would leave ForestEthics and the Sierra Club, along with several other environmental groups, involved in one lawsuit on crude-by-rail in the Ninth Circuit. That lawsuit challenges tank car phaseout requirements and standards, as well as several other parts of the rule (Sierra Club v. Foxx, 9th Cir., No. 15-71461, case filed, 5/14/15; 94 DEN A-9, 5/15/15)).
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Bill Would Limit Crude Oil Volatility for Rail Service
May 20, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
ep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) introduced May 15 a bill to limit the volatility of crude oil shipped interstate by rail. The bill, H.R. 2379, would temporarily limit the Reid Vapor Pressure of crude oil to 8.5 pounds per square inch before being moved by rail. That limit would remain in effect until the Transportation Department determined an appropriate national “maximum volatility standard” for this type of transportation. The bill aims to mitigate risks associated with shipping crude oil by rail, a practice that has increased significantly in recent years and has resulted in a variety of public health and environmental damages such as threatening drinking water supplies for communities. Lowey is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. The bill is available at http://lowey.house.gov/uploads/LOWEY_007_xml.pdf.
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