Texas is set to receive $209 million as part of the legal settlement for Volkswagen’s decade-long scheme to cheat on diesel emissions tests in the United States and elsewhere. Here are three steps the state needs to take before receiving the money.

Texas is set to receive $209 million as part of the legal settlement for Volkswagen’s decade-long scheme to cheat on diesel emissions tests in the United States and elsewhere. Here are three steps the state needs to take before receiving the money.

By Richard Denison

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

The lead article in Sunday’s print edition of the New York Times, titled “Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots,” presents an 8000-word exposé of the Trump Administration’s takeover of the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety program.  It focuses on the outsized role played by Dr. Nancy Beck, who arrived at the Agency on May 1 fresh from her job as a senior official at the chemical industry’s main trade association, the American Chemistry Council (ACC).

For those who have not had the chance to read the article, I provide here my take on some of its most compelling and disturbing findings:

1. Immediately upon her arrival at EPA as a political appointee, Dr. Beck made extensive changes to the near-final “framework rules” implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act.
2. Dr. Beck’s changes were objected to by career staff in multiple offices across the Agency.
3. Dr. Beck is actively working to jettison proposed rules that would ban high-risk uses of trichloroethylene and methylene chloride.
4. Dr. Beck has been cleared to work on issues directly relating to her prior employer’s interests.
5. While at ACC, Dr. Beck frequently worked with Michael Dourson, the industry toxicologist-for-hire that President Trump nominated to head the EPA chemical safety office and who is facing stiff opposition from many Senators.

For a bit more detail on each of these, keep reading.  

1. Immediately upon her arrival at EPA as a political appointee, Dr. Beck made extensive changes to the near-final chemical safety “framework rules” implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act. These rules specify how core provisions of the reformed TSCA are to be implemented for many years to come.  The changes Beck made closely mirror those called for by ACC, some of which Beck herself had authored while with the industry’s lobbying arm.  (Full disclosure:  EDF and other groups have filed lawsuits challenging these rules as contrary to the law.)

2.  Dr. Beck’s changes were objected to by career staff in multiple offices across the Agency. The offices objected, among other things to  the exclusion from risk evaluations of so-called “legacy uses,” where a chemical is no longer manufactured for a specific use in the U.S. but has continued use and disposal; the inclusion of precise definitions of certain terms like “best available science;” allowance for EPA only to examine a subset of uses of a chemical in its risk evaluation; and a lack of opportunity for public comment on the extensive changes made relative to the proposed rules.

Notably, the Times reported that staff were told by EPA’s political leadership that they could not file “nonconcurrences,” which would have triggered further review of the changes being made.

3.  Dr. Beck is actively working to jettison proposed rules that would ban high-risk uses of trichloroethylene and methylene chloride. These rules, proposed in December and January, represented the first effort by EPA to use its TSCA authority to restrict use of a chemical in 28 years.  EPA’s work on these rules began prior to TSCA reform and was specifically grandfathered in under the reforms, but the chemical industry’s opposition to the rules is holding sway.  ACC members make and use both of these chemicals, and Beck herself co-authored ACC’s comments on EPA’s risk assessments of these chemicals.

While paint strippers containing methylene chloride are responsible for dozens of deaths in recent years, the Times reported that Beck specifically questioned whether the number of deaths was sufficient to warrant a ban.

4.  Dr. Beck has been cleared to work on issues directly relating to her prior employer’s interests. Beck was appointed using a relatively rare authority usually reserved for technical experts who are not in decision-making positions.  As such she was exempted from the Trump ethics pledge.  Indeed, her ethics agreement is jaw-dropping, and gives her wide latitude to work on issues in which ACC has financial interests in order to ensure those interests are taken into account.

Also of note is the date of Beck’s ethics agreement:  June 8, 2017.  Final drafts of the two TSCA framework rules she had worked feverishly to change went over to the White House for final sign-off on May 23 and June 1.  In other words, it appears that her work on these rules occurred prior to even this limited ethics agreement being in place.

5.  While at ACC, Dr. Beck frequently worked with Michael Dourson, the industry toxicologist-for-hire that President Trump nominated to head the EPA chemical safety office and who is facing stiff opposition from many Senators. The Times article notes that the two co-authored a paper funded by ACC; that is one of at least two such papers.  Last week it was reported that Dourson is already working at EPA as a special advisor to Administrator Pruitt even though his nomination has yet to be confirmed.

 

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. The lead article in Sunday’s print edition of the New York Times, titled “Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots,” presents an 8000-word exposé of the Trump Administration’s takeover of the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety program.  It focuses on […]

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist. The lead article in Sunday’s print edition of the New York Times, titled “Why Has the E.P.A. Shifted on Toxic Chemicals? An Industry Insider Helps Call the Shots,” presents an 8000-word exposé of the Trump Administration’s takeover of the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety program.  It focuses on […]

By Natalie Karas, Michael Panfil, and Rama Zakaria Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry recently proposed that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) provide new revenues and guaranteed profits to the owners of inefficient and aging coal and nuclear power plants at the expense of American homeowners and businesses. These aging units are losing […]

By EDF Blogs

By Natalie Karas, Michael Panfil, and Rama Zakaria

Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry recently proposed that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) provide new revenues and guaranteed profits to the owners of inefficient and aging coal and nuclear power plants at the expense of American homeowners and businesses. These aging units are losing out to more efficient and innovative ways to generate power, reduce peak demand, and foster participation and competitive in the markets. EDF filed comments – separately and with a coalition of environmental organizations – today opposing DOE’s proposal to diminish, if not destroy, the integrity of competitive wholesale electricity markets.

The proposal is plagued by both procedural and substantive infirmities. It prevents informed outcomes by shortening FERC’s generally lengthy rulemaking process to a mere 60 days – offering little time for key stakeholders to participate. And it directs an independent, fuel-neutral federal agency to bankroll favored companies and energy sources under the guise of “resiliency,” a term the proposal does not define, applied to a problem that does not exist. In fact, a study released today shows “no clear relationship” between increased reliability and more coal and nuclear power.

Department of Energy's proposal to FERC: Too many costs, no actual benefits
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It’s no surprise the DOE’s proposal has been greeted by a chorus of resistance and disapproval, uniting organizations as varied as natural gas companies, environmental groups, consumer advocates, states, academia, technology firms, and congressional members.

Without pointing to any concrete examples, DOE falsely suggests the U.S. electric system is unreliable, and claims coal and nuclear are crucial to saving it. But past events have shown that both coal and nuclear units have failed to perform during critical reliability events, demonstrating that DOE’s proposal is nothing more than an ill-conceived political ploy. Meanwhile, DOE staff’s own study concluded this summer the transition to cleaner energy is making America’s electricity system more affordable, resilient, and reliable. And analysis after analysis has concluded coal simply can’t compete against cheaper, cleaner alternatives.

DOE’s proposal is irreconcilable with the design of organized wholesale energy markets. Price signals, formulated by and through competition, are the foundation upon which energy markets exist. Investors risk capital to innovate and provide energy solutions that are cost-effective and attractive to customers so they can earn returns based on rational commercial decisions.

The DOE proposal is fundamentally flawed because it provides guaranteed profits to the owners of aging coal and nuclear plants that are too inefficient and uneconomic to compete in the market. In other words, the plan forces customers to pay for electricity from old, costly coal power plants, no matter the cost. The proposal’s basic ingredient, “cost of service,” undercuts the rational for free, competitive markets – a concept we were led to believe this administration fervently supports.

DOE’s proposal is irreconcilable with the design of organized wholesale energy markets.

DOE’s proposal would impose billions in losses on competitive market investors and customers by constraining innovation and undercutting competition by newer, cleaner, more cost-effective energy sources like solar, wind, energy efficiency and natural gas. According to EDF analysis, under the DOE proposal, the total operating costs that would be paid to eligible coal and nuclear resources could reach over $14 billion. No wonder Wall Street has described the proposal as “anticompetitive.” DOE’s proposal has real consequences whereby people will lose jobs, livelihoods will be destroyed, market investments will turn upside down and unprofitable, and public health will suffer.

At its essence, this plan aims to create clear winners by sheltering coal and nuclear companies from competitive markets with profit guarantees. But everyone else loses. Our energy markets – and the companies that compete in it – would suffer from blatant governmental interference.

And Americans would pay more and suffer from dirtier air in return. The public health and environmental impacts associated with the proposal are staggering, with preliminary EDF analysis finding the net incremental increase in carbon dioxide emissions could reach over 70 million tons annually. This equates to the annual greenhouse gas emissions for more than 13 million passenger vehicles.

The costs are too high, in every sense of the word.

Photo source: Arnold Paul, cropped by Gralo

By Natalie Karas, Michael Panfil, and Rama Zakaria Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry recently proposed that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) provide new revenues and guaranteed profits to the owners of inefficient and aging coal and nuclear power plants at the expense of American homeowners and businesses. These aging units are losing […]

By Natalie Karas, Michael Panfil, and Rama Zakaria Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry recently proposed that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) provide new revenues and guaranteed profits to the owners of inefficient and aging coal and nuclear power plants at the expense of American homeowners and businesses. These aging units are losing […]

By Natalie Karas, Michael Panfil, and Rama Zakaria Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry recently proposed that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) provide new revenues and guaranteed profits to the owners of inefficient and aging coal and nuclear power plants at the expense of American homeowners and businesses. These aging units are losing […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is refusing to move forward with the implementation of health-based standards that protect Americans from dangerous ground-level ozone pollution — more commonly known as smog. That’s why Environmental Defense Fund, along with a broad coalition of public health and environmental groups, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt informing […]

The post EPA refuses to act on smog pollution. Here’s what’s at stake. appeared first on Climate 411.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is refusing to move forward with the implementation of health-based standards that protect Americans from dangerous ground-level ozone pollution — more commonly known as smog. That’s why Environmental Defense Fund, along with a broad coalition of public health and environmental groups, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt informing […]

The post EPA refuses to act on smog pollution. Here’s what’s at stake. appeared first on Climate 411.

By Rachel Fullmer

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is refusing to move forward with the implementation of health-based standards that protect Americans from dangerous ground-level ozone pollution — more commonly known as smog.

That’s why Environmental Defense Fund, along with a broad coalition of public health and environmental groups, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt informing him that we will take legal action if he does not carry out his mandatory duty to begin implementing our nation’s 2015 health-based smog standard.

Smog is a caustic pollutant that irritates the lungs, exacerbates lung conditions like asthma, and is linked to a wide-array of serious heart and lung diseases.

It is particularly harmful for children, seniors, people with lung impairments like asthma, and anyone active outdoors.

Under the Clean Air Act, October 1, 2017 was the deadline for identifying the communities that meet our nation’s health-based smog standard, and for identifying those that are violating the standard. Administrator Pruitt missed this mandatory deadline to begin implementing the smog safeguards.

The Clean Air Act’s statutory deadlines are not merely suggestions – they are of critical importance to achieving better air quality. When EPA shirks mandatory deadlines, the Clean Air Act’s mechanisms to improve air quality fail to engage and American families suffer the harmful effects of breathing polluted air for longer.

Administrator Pruitt unlawfully attempted to extend this same deadline, by one year, earlier this summer. However, he was forced to withdraw this extension and reinstate the October 1, 2017 deadline in response to legal challenges filed by EDF and our public health partners, and by a coalition of 16 state Attorneys General.

Now Pruitt has failed to meet the deadline – adding to his concerning pattern of delay, and undermining these important public health safeguards.

Here’s more on the consequences of ignoring our national health-based smog standards:

By delaying implementation of the standards, EPA is allowing vulnerable communities to suffer the consequences of polluted air while Administrator Pruitt stalls.

For instance, delaying the standards will mean that residents of the Uintah Basin in Northeastern Utah will potentially be faced with more and longer exposure to pollution levels that at times can rival smoggy Los Angeles.

This is truly unacceptable when there are clear solutions for reducing smog and protecting public health, such as reducing the pollution emitted from the thousands of oil and gas wells that dot the basin – common sense solutions that would be helped along if the 2015 health-based smog standard was properly and timely implemented.

Administrator Pruitt’s failure to identify which communities have air quality that violates the health standard obscures Americans’ basic right to know whether the very air we breathe meets the level that EPA has determined to be healthy.

The health-based national air quality standard for deadly air pollutants like smog form the foundation of the Clean Air Act — a bedrock public health statute that has provided for extraordinary, bipartisan progress in protecting Americans’ health and the environment for more than 40 years.

These consensus-backed health standards save lives and protect American families. By EPA’s own estimate, compliance with the 2015 smog standard will save hundreds of lives, prevent 230,000 asthma attacks in children, and prevent 160,000 missed school days for children each year.

Failure to carry out his responsibilities under our nation’s clean air laws also demonstrates Administrator Pruitt’s disregard for the recommendations of EPA’s own public health experts and scientists.

The 2015 health-based standard for smog was developed through a rigorous and extensive rulemaking process over the course of several years, and the science on smog’s health impacts is well-established.

EPA finalized a revised, strengthened standard of 70 parts per billion after engaging in a transparent, public process and relying on well-established scientific information and the recommendations of an independent committee of scientific advisors.

Administrator Pruitt has a legal duty to carry out the health standard to ensure healthier, longer lives for millions of Americans afflicted by dangerous smog pollution. That’s why EDF joined so many others in telling him we’ll go to court if he doesn’t.

Those joining us on the notice of intent to sue are the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, American Thoracic Society, Appalachian Mountain Club, Earthjustice, Environmental Law & Policy Center, National Parks Conservation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and West Harlem Environmental Action.

The Attorneys General of New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Washington D.C. sent a similar letter.

We urges Administrator Pruitt to “expeditiously” carry out his responsibility under our nation’s clean air law to protect the health of our families and communities. There is no time to waste.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is refusing to move forward with the implementation of health-based standards that protect Americans from dangerous ground-level ozone pollution — more commonly known as smog. That’s why Environmental Defense Fund, along with a broad coalition of public health and environmental groups, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt informing […]

Governor Wolf claims he is protecting the health of Pennsylvanians and their environment, but his actions since taking office tell a different story. We need the Pennsylvania legislature to step up. MCAF. Regional. C4.

Governor Wolf claims he is protecting the health of Pennsylvanians and their environment, but his actions since taking office tell a different story. We need the Pennsylvania legislature to step up. MCAF. Regional. C4.

Governor Wolf claims he is protecting the health of Pennsylvanians and their environment, but his actions since taking office tell a different story. We need the Pennsylvania legislature to step up. MCAF. Regional. C4.

Written by Lisa Bennett

For the 15 million of us who live in Northern California, life changed two weeks ago.

It was not only the horrifying loss of lives, homes, communities, landscapes and the ravaging of Wine Country, a tourist destination more popular than Disney World.

It was the shock of how suddenly life can change—and on such a massive scale.

It was the unavoidable proof that we are interconnected in this climate-changing world. Some experience supersized hurricanes, some drought and unprecedented wildfires, some sea level rise.

And it was the awful feeling of being powerless to protect one’s children from the most fundamental thing in the world: the air we breathe.

In a matter of days, the wildfires created as many carbon emissions as are emitted in a year from all the cars on the road in California, which already suffered from the worst air pollution in the nation.

Bay Area Wake Up

Nearly 40 percent of Americans—125 million people—live where the air is unhealthy to breathe everyday.

Yet in Bay Area, an admittedly privileged place, we haven’t been confronted with severely poor air quality before. And many of us are big outdoor people: We live here for the spectacular natural offerings. We socialize on hikes, while rock climbing, or surfing.

Then, in a matter of days, our air quality was as bad as Beijing’s. Schools were closed. Outdoor activities canceled. People were wearing ask masks, and stores could not keep them in stock.

Those communities most directly affected, in Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties, were declared severe health hazards.

But the fires were so vast that if you lived in San Francisco, Berkeley, or Oakland, you could have thought they were in your own relative backyard. The sky was bluish, the evening sun red, the smell unavoidable. We were repeatedly on the “highest five” list for the worst air quality in the nation. And we were staying indoors, windows closed.

Another Hit to the American Dream

The reality of what has happened—above all, for those most directly affected—is indescribable. It is, as Gov. Brown said, the worst tragedy in our state’s history.

And while influenced by a number of factors, including high winds, climate change, as the Governor and fire officials have said, has made these fires much worse. Years of severe drought will do that.

The symbolism is also hard to miss. California, in some ways, epitomizes the American Dream—a dream that, across the nation, has recently suffered many slings and arrows. And, now, in the Golden State, it has suffered this one.

So What Happens Now?

Like the hurricanes that devastated Puerto Rico, Houston, and parts of Florida, the catastrophic fires in California point to some important things that we could allow to change us for the good. For example:

• We really are all connected in this.
  One of the reasons that we face some of the environmental crises we do, as my co-authors and I wrote in Ecoliterate, is because our complex global society has created a vast collective blind spot about the effects of human behavior on natural systems.If a small indigenous society farmed unsustainably one year, for example, the people would directly experience the consequences of it the next year—and likely change their ways. But with our food, production, and other systems spread across the planet, consequences are a lot harder for us to grasp.Still, the reality is that we are interconnected in the causes as well as the consequences of climate change, as these fires have so dramatically shown. A wealthy community can be wiped out as quickly as a poor one. And there are no borders on the air.
• It’s OK to get mad as hell about the unconscionable failure to protect people—children, especially—from climate change.
  As parents, we all want to protect our children from harm. Some things we can’t protect them from, and that’s always a hard pill to swallow. But the science on climate change has been clear for decades; so have the solutions.The only thing that has ever been lacking is the political will. And if you want to understand why, you only need, as they say in journalism circles, to follow the money. It leads right back to oil and coal interests, as The New Yorker writer Jane Mayer chronicles in Dark Money.Should we quietly if grudgingly accept this—knowing unprecedented tragedies such as those we have seen this year are the result? Hell no. We need to marshal a political will stronger than that of those who lobby for the self-destructive status quo. As mothers, we can do this. If you need inspiration, just look to the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.
• In difficult times, humans are capable not only of radical hope but of great kindness and ordinary heroism.
  In Rebecca Solnit’s book, Paradise Built in Hell, she reveals that people often respond to calamity not with chaos, greed, and violence but with spontaneous altruism, self-organization and mutual aid. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake is one of her examples. What we have seen in response to the Wine Country wildfires is no different.And while only some can be as brave as the firefighters who have been risking their lives for others, many more of us are capable of ordinary heroism. We can rise above our usual ways, even put ourselves at risk for the benefit of others. We’re parents. This is what we do. And this is what we must do now in more forcefully demanding bold climate action—not the unjustifiable backsliding we’ve seen from Washington, D.C., this year.

So imagine if after the shock of California’s wildfires, we put some of these things into action—for the sake of everyone’s children, now and to come? It would, perhaps, be one good thing to rise from the ashes.

TELL CONGRESS: NOBODY VOTED TO MAKE AMERICA DIRTY AGAIN

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Written by Molly Rauch

When Michael Dourson, Trump’s nominee to head EPA’s chemical safety office, was grilled by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this month, I sat in the hearing room thinking about what, exactly, was at stake. Next to me were families who had traveled to DC from Indiana because their groundwater is contaminated with TCE, an industrial solvent linked to cancer. One of those families has a child in treatment for cancer. Another lost their child to cancer.

Last year, with your help, Congress—with rare bipartisan spirit—passed a law to better regulate toxic chemicals. That law is meant to protect children from chemical exposures that may cause cancer. It should go without saying—but not these days: The bill must be implemented by someone who wants to protect children’s health.

Dourson has built his career as a consultant for chemical companies. Paid by the chemical industry, he has dangerously downplayed the health risks of TCE, the carcinogen that contaminated groundwater in Indiana and many other states; 1,4-dioxane, established by scientists and medical researchers to be a likely carcinogen; flame retardants; and PFOA, a stain resistant chemical made by DuPont that harms the developing brains of babies and children.

PFOA has contaminated water supplies in New York, Ohio, and West Virginia. In West Virginia, Dourson helped the state environmental protection department set a safety level for PFOA that was 150 times higher than the maximum level DuPont’s own scientists had set. This standard, more than 2,000 times less stringent than the one the EPA now recommends, stayed in place for four years, and determined which families DuPont was required to supply with clean water.

For decades, if you were a big company facing health challenges from EPA, you knew just what to do: Ask Dourson for a review of your toxic product. What you would get in return: A recommendation that the government weaken health standards for that chemical.

In the Senate hearing room, I was shocked at Dourson’s reluctance to acknowledge the health harms of a range toxins, from petcoke to PFOA. He also boldly refused to recuse himself from deliberations about the very chemicals he has been paid to champion. Watching the emotional reaction of those families next to me was physically painful.

Let’s get one thing straight. When moms talk about protecting children from chemical exposures, we are talking about cancer, birth defects, and other devastating issues.

Dourson has built a career supporting industry polluters. He has worked for Dow Chemical, Koch Industries, DuPont, and Chevron to whitewash the impact of chemicals linked to a range of health problems.

Dourson even took money from Big Tobacco to downplay the health effects of breathing second hand cigarette smoke.

This is the wrong guy for the job.

Tell your Senator: Dourson should not be responsible for protecting our children from toxic chemicals.

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Each year, $330 million dollars of natural gas is wasted on our public lands through the harmful practices of venting and flaring. MCAF. C3. Regional.