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(ACC Mentioned) Report: NY Senate Committee Chair Won't Allow Vote on 'Toxic Toys' Bill; Working on Compromise
May 29, 2015 | Auburn Citizen
By Robert Harding
State Sen. Tom O'Mara, the chairman of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, won't hold a vote on a bill that aims to increase regulation of chemicals used to manufacture children's toys, according to a Capital report. -
Pallone Calls for Toxic Chemicals Reform
May 29, 2015 | MyCentralJersey.com
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., 6th District, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, highlighted the progress in Congress and the importance to New Jersey of the TSCA Modernization Act while touring the PQ Corporation facility in the Avenel section here Thursday. -
WOTUS Prediction: ‘There will be lawsuits’
May 27, 2015 | Politico
By Jenny Hopkinson
The fight over what constitutes a water of the United States is now headed for the courtroom. -
Effort to Cut 'Red Tape' Triggers Lobbying Battle in Senate
May 22, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
A Senate subcommittee has become a K Street hot spot with its two top senators leading an effort to target troublesome regulations. -
Greenwire's Snider Talks Political, Legal Future of Obama Water Rule
May 29, 2015 | E&E TV
This week, the Obama administration finalized its "Waters of the U.S." rule, making some significant changes to its draft proposal. -
Walker: EPA Carbon Rule 'Unworkable' for Wisconsin
May 29, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) told President Obama that his landmark carbon rule for power plants is “unworkable” for the Badger State. -
Scott Walker Hints at 'Just Say No' Stance to Power Plant Rule
May 29, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
Wisconsin's Scott Walker is the latest Republican governor to hint he might opt not to comply with U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan if it is not substantially overhauled before the agency finalizes it this summer. -
Oil-by-Rail Problems 'Refuse to be Solved' -- Safety Chief
May 29, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Safety problems tied to surging rail shipments of crude oil "are not going to be solved overnight," the top safety official at the Federal Railroad Administration said yesterday. -
Facing Pressure, Feds Keep Oil Train Info Accessible
May 29, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
U.S. transportation regulators said yesterday they would not overrule a May 2014 order to improve oil train transparency, citing first responders' concerns about the planned changes.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
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May 29, 2015 | Auburn Citizen
By Robert Harding
State Sen. Tom O'Mara, the chairman of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, won't hold a vote on a bill that aims to increase regulation of chemicals used to manufacture children's toys, according to a Capital report.
After the committee met Thursday, O'Mara, R-Big Flats, told Capital that one concern with the legislation, the Child Safe Products Act, is that it's "really over-broad."
O'Mara said he's working on a compromise version of the bill that would address issues raised by manufacturers key industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council, which oppose the current makeup of the legislation.
The measure would require manufacturers to disclose whether children's products contain toxic chemicals. Certain chemicals would be banned beginning in 2018.
Under the legislation, the state Department of Environmental Conservation would be permitted to join the Interstate Chemicals Clearinghouse, which collects data from manufacturers.
The Child Safe Products Act is supported by environmental groups, including Environmental Advocates of New York and the Sierra Club's Atlantic chapter.
On Thursday, a coalition of environmentalists said there was more than enough support for the bill to pass in the Senate. The legislation is sponsored by state Sen. Phil Boyle, a Long Island Republican, and has 39 cosponsors.
But there is opposition from the chemical industry and business groups, including the Business Council of New York State and the National Federation of Independent Business' New York chapter.
The Assembly approved the bill in April has passed the measure each of the past three years. The Senate hasn't brought it to the floor for a vote.
The Senate has until June 17 — the final day of the legislative session — to act on the legislation.
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Pallone Calls for Toxic Chemicals Reform
May 29, 2015 | MyCentralJersey.com
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., 6th District, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, highlighted the progress in Congress and the importance to New Jersey of the TSCA Modernization Act while touring the PQ Corporation facility in the Avenel section here Thursday.
The legislation, which was formally introduced this week, has advanced to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee after recently passing a subcommittee by a 21-0 vote. It is a bipartisan effort to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to improve the protection of human health and the environment, and to give the public greater confidence in American-made chemicals and the products that contain them.
Protecting consumers from dangerous chemicals in commerce was a long-held priority of late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and has been worked on for years by Pallone. New Jersey has one of the largest chemical industries in the country, making reform of the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act critical.
“The TSCA Modernization Act would be a significant and positive step in ensuring that toxic chemicals are removed from everyday products, while encouraging continued innovation, growth, and leadership by New Jersey in this vital economic sector,” Pallone said. “I am proud to work to continue Senator Lautenberg’s legacy of leadership on chemical safety, and I look forward to working to get this breakthrough bill through the House with a strong bipartisan vote.”
Congress enacted TSCA in 1976 to give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authority to address the risks posed by the production and use of toxic chemicals in consumer products. However, because of limitations in the statute, it is widely agreed that TSCA has largely failed to fulfill its purpose.
PQ Corporation is a leading global producer of chemical products.
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WOTUS Prediction: ‘There will be lawsuits’
May 27, 2015 | Politico
By Jenny Hopkinson
The fight over what constitutes a water of the United States is now headed for the courtroom.
“There will be lawsuits,” John Dillard, an attorney at the agriculture- and food-focused firm Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz, said of the final rule released Wednesday by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. “Although EPA has framed this as not being a power grab, it most certainly is.”
It remains to be seen which group from any number of industries, states and cities will file the first complaint against the two agencies and the 297 pages of regulatory language, definitions and appendixes that the administration has dubbed the Clean Water Rule, but they’ll no doubt argue the federal government strayed too far from the Clean Water Act’s mission to regulate “navigable waters.”
Attorneys representing agriculture, energy and a multitude of other industries have now retreated to their respective corners to begin reviewing the mammoth document and its interpretation of which bodies of water or ditches should be governed by the federal Clean Water Act and which should instead be left to the states. While the 1972 law has always been interpreted to cover big waterways, like the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, lawmakers and the courts have long struggled with how far upstream protections need to go to ensure the health of those water bodies.
And it might be state governments that make the first move. Attorneys general from Arkansas and Oklahoma have already said they plan to take legal action to block the measure.
Any challenge will likely focus on how the new rule went too far, said Jeff Porter, chairman of the environmental law section at Mintz Levin.
When Congress and the White House were crafting the Clean Water Act in the 1970s, “they cannot have meant intermittent or ephemeral streams, and this rule extends jurisdiction to those sorts of sometimes water bodies,” Porter said. “If Congress meant to regulate water bodies that were two steps removed from [navigable waters], they would have written that.”
The final rule has its defenders, too, however.
EPA was careful to craft the rule within the confines laid out by the Supreme Court when it weighed in on the issue in 2001 and 2006, said Jon Devine, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“Given how conservatively the agency played it with respect to the law and the science, this is not going to be a hard one” for EPA to defend, Devine said, pointing to the review of more than 1,200 studies that serve as the scientific basis of the measure. The Supreme Court has never “held that the Clean Water Act is limited to water bodies on which you can float a boat so the question comes down to how faithfully are the agencies following the Supreme Court’s directive. I think they are well within those guidelines.”
EPA has been quick to stand by its new regulation, arguing that it listened to the more than one million comments it received on its earlier proposal from environmental advocates, states, cities and a multitude of industry groups. In a tightly controlled roll out of the rule Wednesday morning, the agency first posted to its website a series of industry-specific fact sheets detailing how, for example, the rule preserves long-standing exemptions for the agriculture industry and won’t cover waste treatment systems at new housing developments.
The full rule came out later along with blog posts and press releases further touting the measure.
In response to concerns raised by regulated groups, the final rule included provisions that say a tributary must show physical features of flowing water; limit the measure to only those ditches that act like tributaries; and exempt tile drainage systems. That’s in addition to preserving long-standing exemptions for agricultural practices.
The agency also put a 100-foot limit on how far wetlands can be from water bodies under federal authority, though it extended that to 1,500 feet in a flood plain. And it decided to individually assess whether certain ecological regions, such as prairie potholes and coastal bays on the Delmarva Peninsula, fall under Clean Water Act jurisdiction instead of issuing a blanket standard for those features.
“We did listen,” Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, said on one of at least two calls with reporters to lay out the details of the rule and answer questions.
But whether that will be enough for industry groups is yet to be seen.
“Based on EPA’s aggressive advocacy campaign in support of its original proposed rule — and the agency’s numerous misstatements about the content and impact of that proposal — we find little comfort in the agency’s assurances that our concerns have been addressed in any meaningful way,” Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a statement.
The Farm Bureau is taking a few days to go over the rule and will “decide on an appropriate course of action once that review is complete,” Stallman said.
Other industry groups were less measured in their responses.
“There are serious concerns about retroactive applications of the rulemaking and added costs on business operation,” said Lee Fuller, an executive vice president at the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “This regulatory regime will result in far more significant economic impacts and unintended consequences than the Obama Administration is leading the American people to believe.”
EPA has yet to publish its rule in the Federal Register, which will start the clock on the 60-day deadline for the rule to take effect. After that, groups will likely challenge the measure within about 90 days.
Meanwhile, the attorneys of various industry groups have begun to study their options.
While the legal challenge will likely address the question of whether EPA has gone beyond “navigable waters,” groups could also tackle the rule under small business statues and federal anti-lobbying procedures.
The Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy has already raised concerns that the administration may have violated federal rules to protect small businesses under the Regulatory Flexibility Act. EPA and the Corps claimed that the measure wouldn’t effect small entities, and in doing so avoided a requirement to formally consult with businesses. However, Charles Maresca, director of interagency affairs for the Office of Advocacy, told lawmakers earlier this month that the agencies were incorrect with their conclusions.
“In this instance EPA [and the Corps] should have convened a [Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Act] panel,” said Maresca at a May 19 hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
“Certain parts of the RFA are judicially reviewable and an incorrect certification could be the basis of a complaint in federal court.”
The Clean Water Rule could also face a challenge under the Anti-Lobbying Act following reports that EPA and the Army Corps potentially violated the law while conducting it’s outreach campaign. Critics, according to a recent report from the New York Times, have accused the agency of intentionally steering its public outreach campaign with the intention of flooding the public comment period with positive views of the rule to outweigh any concerns. Lawmakers have already raised concerns about the issue, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has asked the GAO to perform a review.
EPA has staunchly denied the allegations.
“The agency is doing what we have always done and outreached” to the public and potentially regulated entities," McCarthy said, noting that EPA has conducted more than 400 meetings on rule. “The more we can get information to the public the better, and social media is part of that effort…there is no way in the world we have crossed any legal line.”
Whatever track any possible legal challenge takes, it will undoubtedly delay the implementation of the rule, leaving the current ambiguous standard firmly in place for quite some time, Porter said.
What EPA needs is for “Congress and the president [to speak] with specific clarity about what they together intend the scope of the Clean Water Act,” Porter said. That way, “it would be easier for EPA to determine what rules it can make that are consistent or inconsistent with that rule.”
“And whichever way it’s resolved, we will be in a new administration, and we will begin this dance all over again,” Porter said, pointing to the pair of Supreme Court rulings that he said provided little clarity and multiple of efforts by prior administrations to address the issue with their solution quickly scrapped by their successors. “The best answer is for Congress to act.”
Two bills already are in play. The House passed legislation from Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) this month that would force EPA and the Army Corps to kick their rule back to the drawing board and consult with states and industries before writing a new proposal. The Senate is considering a similar measure from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) that is awaiting a vote in the Environment and Public Works Committee and has the backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
But both the House and Senate bills face a veto threat and likely wouldn’t fix the problem anyhow given their focus on sending EPA to try again with its definitions. As a result, it will be the court system that gets another shot at trying to clarify the issue.
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Effort to Cut 'Red Tape' Triggers Lobbying Battle in Senate
May 22, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus
A Senate subcommittee has become a K Street hot spot with its two top senators leading an effort to target troublesome regulations.
Earlier this year, Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), chairman of the Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Subcommittee, and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), the subpanel's ranking member, launched the #CutRedTape Initiative. The lawmakers lamented how there was no central hub for complaints about federal rules -- many of which they said were flowing into their offices from constituents who were bewildered by government bureaucracy.
In response, the senators set up a Web page to collect those grievances (Greenwire, March 26). They, along with Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), also wrote to dozens of organizations asking them for input on where the regulatory process had gone off the rails (E&E Daily, March 19).
Since then, business groups from a variety of industry sectors have sent the senators lists of their most hated regulations, as well as ways to streamline the rulemaking process.
Liz Gasster, vice president for the Business Roundtable -- a trade association that represents the chief executives of the biggest U.S. companies -- said the senators were asking the right questions of the regulatory system.
"I think it's great that they reached out and asked the questions that they're asking," Gasster said. "The questions that they asked are smart and are on the money."
Last month, the Business Roundtable sent in its own letter to the subcommittee, noting that "pending regulations of greatest concern include" U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, its forthcoming ozone standard, net neutrality, as well as rules stemming from the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank law. The business group also advocated for broader reforms to the federal rulemaking process, such as using cost-benefit analysis and reviewing past regulations.
Gasster said her group was not against all regulations but rather for more effective rules.
"We are interested in the process reforms that can lead to smarter regulation," said the Business Roundtable executive. "What are the kind of incremental changes of how we regulate in this country that can lead to better results for everyone?"
The roundtable is one of many business groups that have written into the subcommittee in response to its #CutRedTape Initiative.
The National Association of Manufacturers sent a letter earlier this month to Lankford, Heitkamp and other senators on the full Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The group cited several rules as challenging, from EPA's boiler MACT regulation to the hydraulic fracturing standards fashioned by the agency and the Bureau of Land Management.
"Manufacturers look forward to a day when our regulatory system is a competitive advantage for our country, instead of unnecessarily costly, inefficient, adversarial and a barrier to business formation," said Jay Timmons, NAM's president and CEO, in the letter.
Other groups have written to the senators about regulations, as well.
The American Forest & Paper Association discussed how government treats biomass and formaldehyde, as well as EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers' "Waters of the U.S." rule in a letter dated May 1.
The American Gas Association also took aim at the WOTUS proposal and at various permitting rules and guidance offered by the White House Council on Environmental Quality on the National Environmental Policy Act in its own letter from last month.
The National Mining Association sent a list of regulatory concerns to the subcommittee, expressing worries over many of the same EPA rules (E&E Daily, May 8).
The #CutRedTape online portal has also attracted some attention. D.J. Jordan, a spokesman for Lankford, said so far the portal has received 98 submissions that touch on several different agencies.
"The portal offers a uniquely direct channel by which to tell Senators Lankford and Heitkamp and the Committee about regulations that are problematic to small businesses, and the response so far has been promising," Jordan said in an email.
In a statement to Greenwire, Heitkamp said "federal regulations keep our water safe, protect consumers, and support our economy, but it's no surprise to anyone that there are also some regulations that have become burdensome."
"That's where our #CutRedTape Initiative comes in. Sen. Lankford and I have heard from many individuals, businesses, and workers so far about their ideas to make federal regulations more effective and efficient, and we hope to hear from even more people. The more stories we get about how federal regulations are directly impacting real people, the more we can do to improve the regulatory process and make it work better," Heitkamp said.'We wanted to make sure that they heard the other side'
Yet Lankford and Heitkamp haven't just heard from industry lobbyists on K Street. Public interest activists and unions also shared letters with the lawmakers in response to their initiative.
"We hope the subcommittee does have good intentions and they do want to get a complete picture of regulations' impact on citizens," said Celia Wexler, senior Washington representative for the Scientific Integrity Initiative at the Union for Concerned Scientists.
Wexler's group sent in its own letter to the senators to highlight "why protective rules, implemented by federal agencies in a timely fashion, have real-world impacts both on our members and the larger American public."
"We wanted to make sure that they heard the other side and not just from business groups who complain about regulations," Wexler said.
Other groups or individuals who want to defend federal rules have been in touch with the subcommittee, as well.
In one letter, the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation, noted how life-saving regulations have been delayed while the predicted costs to business from rules have been overstated at times.
The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, the Center for Effective Government and the Center for Progressive Reform all made similar points in their own letters to the senators: Regulations, many of which have been stalled by the government, can protect the environment and public health.
Ronald White, director of regulatory policy for the Center for Effective Government, said it was "important" that public interest groups weigh in with the subcommittee.
"It was important to weigh in so the conversation about 'regulatory reform' wouldn't be one-sided and dominated by industry," White said.
Gasster with the Business Roundtable said she saw the flow of letters into the subcommittee not as lobbying but rather as "information-gathering" by the senators.
"I think of it as more of information-gathering," she said. "We're solicited to opine."
Lankford has sought to make regulatory reform one of his pet causes in the Senate.
He has made the case in public several times that the process needs to change, including in remarks to the Heritage Foundation this week, and even in an interview broadcast on the Periscope and Meerkat apps (E&E Daily, May 7). Lankford has also written to certain agencies asking them to review their own rules as part of the effort (E&E Daily, May 15).
Some from government watchdog groups are wary of the initiative. White said he sees business groups' pushing for reforms to the regulatory process as a move to stop agencies from issuing new rules.
"I think they are trying to game the system to tilt the process toward their favor," White said. "They now have allies in both the House and the Senate, who are in the majority, and they see this as their opportunity to further their agenda and stop agencies from implementing regulations."
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Greenwire's Snider Talks Political, Legal Future of Obama Water Rule
May 29, 2015 | E&E TV
This week, the Obama administration finalized its "Waters of the U.S." rule, making some significant changes to its draft proposal. How will Congress respond to the rule and how legally defensible will it be when challenged in the courts? On today's The Cutting Edge, Greenwire reporter Annie Snider discusses the rollout and future of the rule.Transcript
The transcript for this video is currently not available. Please check back later.
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Walker: EPA Carbon Rule 'Unworkable' for Wisconsin
May 29, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) told President Obama that his landmark carbon rule for power plants is “unworkable” for the Badger State.
Walker, who is expected to announce a run for president next month, stopped short of saying that Wisconsin would not comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) climate change regulation.
But in a letter to Obama dated May 21, he expressed “deep concerns regarding our ability to develop a state plan to comply with the proposal,” and said it is “riddled with inaccuracies, questionable assumptions and deficiencies that make the development of a responsible state plan unworkable.”
Walker has long been critical of the EPA’s rule, proposed in June 2014 with a goal of slashing the power sector’s carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030. The EPA plans to make the rule final in August, and then states will have a year to submit their compliance plans before the feds implement their own.
Walker's letter is one of the sharpest criticisms of the plan yet from a governor, although leaders from more than 30 states have said they oppose the rule.
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) ordered state agencies in April to ignore the rule and not comply with it, making Oklahoma the only state to clearly declare its intent to disregard the regulation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a top opponent of the proposed rule, has activelylobbied state governors to ignore it.
“Think twice before submitting a state plan — which could lock you in to federal enforcement and expose you to lawsuits — when the administration is standing on shaky legal ground and when, without your support, it won't be able to demonstrate the capacity to carry out such political extremism,” he wrote in March.
Walker has said very little about his stance on humanity's role in climate change, but environmentalists have accused him of prohibiting the state’s Board of Commissioners of Public Lands from doing any work related to climate.
He’s also signed a pledge never to support a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, organized by Charles and David Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity.
Walker wrote letters to the Obama administration in August and December of 2014 saying the rule would cost Wisconsin $3.3 billion to $13.4 billion, due largely to shutting down coal-fired power plants, a figure that he repeated in the most recent letter.
Apart from the cost considerations and technical problems, Walker said, he is concerned that the EPA cannot legally enforce its rule under the Clean Air Act.
“Absent significant and meaningful changes in the final rule, it is difficult to envision how Wisconsin can responsibly construct a state plan that can comply with the requirements of the Clean Power Plan without ignoring our responsibility to ensure safe, affordable and reliable electricity for the people of Wisconsin,” he wrote.
Ellen Nowak, chairwoman of Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission and a Walker appointee, testified at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in March, saying, “we question the very foundation of this proposal.”
She also refused to say whether she believes that greenhouse gases from human activity are contributing to climate change.
Wisconsin is also among numerous Republican-led states suing the EPA to have the rule overturned, a lawsuit that is unlikely to be successful.
In response to the letter, EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia fought back, saying the agency is working closely with states on the regulation.
“EPA's Clean Power Plan is built on a time-tested state-federal partnership in the Clean Air Act for EPA to establish public health goals while providing states important flexibility to design plans to meet their individual and unique needs,” she said in a statement.
The final rule coming out in August will take into account the “unprecedented” input on the rule, including 4.3 million comments received, Purchia said.
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Scott Walker Hints at 'Just Say No' Stance to Power Plant Rule
May 29, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
Wisconsin's Scott Walker is the latest Republican governor to hint he might opt not to comply with U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan if it is not substantially overhauled before the agency finalizes it this summer.
A likely contender for next year's Republican presidential nomination, Walker broadly hinted in a letter to President Obama last week that he would pursue the "just say no" strategy advocated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and others. The existing power plant rule left Wisconsin no room to write an implementation plan that would keep its power rates low and defend its manufacturing sector, he said.
"The proposed rule is riddled with inaccuracies, questionable assumptions and deficiencies that make the development of a responsible state plan unworkable for Wisconsin," he wrote.
Walker pointed to an analysis by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW), which found that the Clean Power Plan would drive Wisconsin's power rates up 29 percent, costing the state between $3.3 billion and $13.4 billion to comply.
"There is no question in my mind that significant job loss will be a byproduct of this rule if it is not withdrawn or corrected," he wrote.
Walker also noted legal concerns with the proposal, including opponents' claim that the Clean Air Act bars EPA from regulating the same source category under both sections 111(d) and 112 of the statute, even for different pollutants. The agency is regulating power plant mercury and other toxics under Section 112.
Wisconsin joined a consolidated lawsuit in April led by Murray Energy Corp. and West Virginia, which rests on that argument.
This is not the first EPA proposal Walker has taken on in recent months. In a March letterletter to Administrator Gina McCarthy, Walker urged her to abandon a proposal to tighten the National Ambient Air Quality standard. He claimed that changing the standard for ozone from 75 parts per billion to 65 parts per billion would cost Wisconsin 25,000 jobs.
Polls show that Walker would be a strong candidate for the Republican presidential nod, but it is unclear how easily he could roll it back if he were to succeed Obama. EPA plans to finalize rules for new, modified and existing power plants this summer and propose a model federal implementation plan. And it is expected to seek to expedite its defense of the rules so that judicial review is concluded before Obama leaves office. A subsequent administration would have to undergo a rulemaking process in order to scuttle them, and would likely face legal challenges of its own. But the task of vetting most state implementation plans for the existing source rule is likely to fall to the next administration, leaving it broad discretion.
Walker is not the only Republican governor eyeing a "just say no" plan. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pledged support for McConnell's strategy, while Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has issued an executive order barring her state from preparing a plan.
In its comments to EPA ahead of the proposal's Dec. 1 deadline for public comment, PSCW complained that Wisconsin was given too little credit for actions it had already taken to bring down power-sector carbon emissions, including early adoption of a renewable energy standard.
"States that already reduced emissions significantly, such as Wisconsin, are being asked to reduce emissions more than states that have done less," the commission wrote. It also argued that the four "building blocks" EPA used to assign state targets could work at cross-purposes, assuming reductions from the overhaul of coal plants even as utilities are forced to shutter them to make way for lower-carbon power.
The draft rule assigns Wisconsin the task of reducing its power plant carbon by just over 34 percent by 2030, to a final emissions rate of 624 pounds per megawatt-hour.
While the target is tougher than those assigned to many states, the World Resources Institute said in a paper before the proposal was released that the Badger State could do even more to reduce emissions.
WRI's December 2013 analysis said Wisconsin could reduce its power-sector emissions by 43 percent by 2020 through a combination of policies that included an expansion of its existing 10 percent RES and rules encouraging utilities to draw from renewable power generated in Wisconsin.
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Oil-by-Rail Problems 'Refuse to be Solved' -- Safety Chief
May 29, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Safety problems tied to surging rail shipments of crude oil "are not going to be solved overnight," the top safety official at the Federal Railroad Administration said yesterday.
"To me, it doesn't seem to matter how many emergency orders, safety advisories, voluntary agreements [or] regulations that we put in place -- these safety issues related to crude and ethanol just refuse to be solved once and for all," said Robert Lauby, associate administrator for railroad safety and chief safety officer with the Federal Railroad Administration. "They just keep coming back and coming back."
Lauby pointed to a rash of recent high-profile derailments in the United States and Canada, including an oil train that jumped the tracks and exploded in February near Montgomery, W.Va., injuring one resident (EnergyWire, Feb. 20).
Rail safety inspectors have long warned of hazards associated with moving flammable liquids in bulk. In 2009, a Canadian National Railway Co. train hauling ethanol derailed and caught fire in Cherry Valley, Ill., killing one bystander and injuring nine.
The rail industry voluntarily adopted tougher tank car standards in the wake of that accident, but older cars will still be put to use carrying ethanol and, increasingly, crude from far-flung oil patches such as North Dakota's Bakken Shale play.
In July 2013, a 72-car train laden with Bakken crude derailed in downtown Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and prompting a flurry of regulatory action on both sides of the border.
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Since that disaster, there have been nearly two dozen train accidents involving crude oil in the United States, although none has caused fatalities. The Department of Transportation has also passed a number of emergency orders and other regulatory actions -- including, most recently, "comprehensive" crude tank car safety regulations developed at FRA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
"We're doing so much more than we have in the past, and yet we still have these issues," Lauby said, adding that crude-by-rail safety is one of few topics that "keep me up at night."
"What I really find disturbing is that these significant [recent] accidents occurred at very, very low speeds -- 33 mph in the case of West Virginia and 23 mph in the case of Illinois," where a 103-car BNSF Railway Co. crude train derailed and sent fiery plumes into the sky outside the town of Galena.
FRA's recent crude-by-rail rule caps oil train speeds at 40 mph through "high-threat urban areas," a government category that includes most major metropolitan centers such as Chicago and New York. Oil and ethanol "unit" trains with 20 or more connected tank cars face a 50 mph speed limit elsewhere.
Lauby spoke yesterday at a meeting of the Railway Safety Advisory Committee, which brings together union members, regulators and representatives from major railways to discuss recent rulemaking, safety concerns and potential solutions. He warned attendees that FRA may consider adopting new rules in the near future "to try and get our arms around this."
Still, environmentalists have criticized FRA for failing to pursue a more aggressive route for phasing out or upgrading the type DOT-111 tank cars involved in the deadly crashes at Cherry Valley and Lac-Mégantic. Under the final rule announced this month, oil shippers will have until January 2018 to get rid of the oldest DOT-111s, and the cars could stay in service for a decade or more in certain circumstances (EnergyWire, May 26).
Lauby acknowledged that the latest rule would take time to pay off along much of the nation's freight network. "We're several years away from seeing the real improvements that that particular rule would provide," he said. "Crude transportation is an issue that we're going to have to live with for a long time, and we're going to have to do our absolute best to make sure that we have a safe system."
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Facing Pressure, Feds Keep Oil Train Info Accessible
May 29, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
U.S. transportation regulators said yesterday they would not overrule a May 2014 order to improve oil train transparency, citing first responders' concerns about the planned changes.
Last year's emergency order, which requires rail shippers moving more than 1 million gallons of crude from the Bakken Shale region to report routing choices to state agencies, was set to be replaced by a Department of Transportation rule that would have shielded such data from the public.
Knowing where mile-long oil trains pass has been increasingly important for firefighters, local elected officials and environmental groups -- not to mention anyone living along the nation's 140,000-mile freight rail network. A string of recent derailments and explosions involving oil trains have heightened calls for the industry to be more open, although railroads have fought new disclosure requirements on security grounds.
"Transparency is a critical piece of our comprehensive approach to safety, and we hope our action to retain the May 2014 emergency order requirement allays any concerns that the Bakken crude oil train information would not be available to SERCs," said DOT spokesman Joe Delcambre, referring to the State Emergency Response Commissions that have received crude-by-rail data since last year's order.
DOT published a sweeping oil train safety rule earlier this month that would have replaced the requirement for shippers to keep commissions informed, instead leaving the burden on state and local officials to contact railroads to learn about oil train routes.
Reporters, environmental groups and several members of Congress criticized the DOT rule as a blow to transparency. Larissa Liebmann, a staff attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance, called abandoning the SERC platform a "step backward" that "allows oil companies to avoid giving the public and emergency responders important information about the explosive oil trains traveling through their communities."
Eight Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, voiced their concerns to DOT in a letter dated May 6, writing that the new requirements "could hamper our first responders and negatively impact the safety of our communities" (E&E Daily, May 7).
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who did not sign the May 6 letter but has been a vocal proponent of tougher oil train rules, welcomed DOT's reversal on Twitter yesterday, calling it a "positive step" while adding that "there is more work to be done."
"All communities and emergency responders need to know when hazardous materials are traveling through their towns," she said.
The full notice, posted by DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the emergency order would remain in effect until the agency can find a way to make the language permanent.
"We fully support the public disclosure of this information to the extent allowed by applicable state, local, and tribal laws," PHMSA said.
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