Document bOb8r76reLd6aa6XKbGZq11pO

To: From: Sent: Subject: Jackson, Ryan[jackson.ryan@epa.gov] Bloomberg BNA Mon 7/3/2017 8:13:52 PM July 3 - Daily Environment Report - Afternoon Briefing Daily Environment Report Afternoon Briefing - Your Preview of Today's News The following news provides a snapshot of what Bloomberg BNA is working on today. Read the full version of all the stories in the final issue, published each night. The Bloomberg BNA Daily Environment Report is brought to you by EPA Libraries. Please note, these materials may be copyrighted and should not be forwarded outside of the U.S. EPA. If you have any questions or no longer wish to receive these messages, please contact Josue Rivera-Olds at riveraolds.iosue@epa.gov, 202-566-1558. Scientists Skeptical of Pruitt's Call for Climate Debate Posted July 03, 2017, 04:03 P.M. ET By David Schultz and Andrew Childers Climate change scientists see little upside to engaging in EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's interest in additional debate on the merits of their research, fearing it will only validate the agency's plans to roll back regulations. "There's nothing that's going to help science in this. If they really want to know what the scientists think, why don't they get a team through the [National Academies of Science] to look at this?" Donald Wuebbles, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Illinois, told Bloomberg BNA. Pruitt expressed an interest in "honest, open discussion" of climate science in a recent interview with Breitbart News Daily. In that interview, he cited a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Steven Koonin, director of the Center for Urban Science & Progress at New York University, that called for a "red team versus blue team" debate on climate science. Those exercises, which originated with the military, pit two groups of experts against each other to attack or defend a proposition, in this case climate change. That approach would highlight any lingering uncertainties with climate science, according to Pruitt. But where Pruitt sees an open debate on the Environmental Protection Agency's climate change work, advocates fear it's the first step toward delaying or blocking more attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "Is this a true, valid scientific process, or is this a charade to attack the well-established global scientific consensus and justify decisions that have already been made?" Thomas Burke, a Johns Hopkins professor and past EPA science adviser and deputy assistant administrator of the agency's research office, said to Bloomberg BNA. Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906 ED_001523_00004073-00001 The EPA did not respond to requests for comment, but proponents of the exercises said they will promote transparency in the agency's work. "I think that Mr. Pruitt recognizes that red-blue exercises have worked very well," William Happer, a Princeton physicist who has argued that a warmer planet would be beneficial, told Bloomberg BNA. "He's had the courage to apply it where it would make an enormous difference. It will give an answer that people will look at with their own eyes." Will Minds Change? While critics of climate change see this as an opportunity to course correct the dogma around carbon dioxide, the exercises--if it happens--is unlikely to change minds on either side of the debate. "Science is not done by people voting and determining whether something is right or not," Wuebbles said. "And you certainly don't do that with scientists going against a team of nonexperts." Whether the debates change minds, proponents said the exercises are useful because an adversarial approach can catch and correct institutional biases or blind spots. Both sides agree that how the analysis is structured is critical, however. "I hope there would be a lot of discussion about how to set this up in a way that is fair and trustworthy, because otherwise it will fail to convince anybody," said Judith Curry, president of Climate Forecast Applications Network who recently retired from the Georgia Institute of Technology citing the politicization of climate science. "A lot of deliberation needs to go into that and it should be public," she told Bloomberg BNA. How Far Will Analysis Go? Some critics of the EPA's climate change regulations said the scientific review could be a prelude to the agency walking back its scientific finding on the harms of greenhouse gases that underpin its regulations. "If they're going to address the science at all in a way that supports their policies, this would be the only way to do it," Marlo Lewis Jr., a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA. "You can't go back to the same people at EPA who are already in the tank for the Paris Agreement and are convinced that this is the end of the world. If you're going to have a debate, you've got to have two sides." The institute, a free-market advocacy group, has petitioned the EPA to undo the greenhouse gas endangerment finding. "All of these issues have been discussed in great detail in the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], outside the IPCC, in the literature, in the policy world. I think there's nothing new that would come out," D. James Baker, director of forest and land-use measurement at the Clinton Climate Initiative and past administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Bloomberg BNA. "All of the issues have been discussed in detail. We know what carbon dioxide does: It warms the atmosphere." Louisiana Town Convulsed by Relocation as Climate Policy Shifts Posted July 03, 2017, 9:08 A.M. ET Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906 ED_001523_00004073-00002 By Christopher Flavelle There was a fight coming and everyone knew it, so the reverend asked his guests to start with a prayer. "Dear Lord, here we gather to consider ways and means that we might be relocated," began Roch Naquin, who lives in Isle de Jean Charles, La., a town slipping into the sea and the site of a radical federal policy experiment. A few dozen residents had gathered July 1 under Naquin's stilted house to hear state officials describe three locations for the new community, and to choose their favorite. "Open our hearts and our minds--to hear, to understand and to respond," said Naquin. "Amen," said the neighbors. It took about 30 minutes for the shouting to start. "Why is it going to take so long to buy the land?" demanded one woman. "Will you pull the money?" asked another. "Crooks!" one man said, to nobody in particular.! Last year, Isle de Jean Charles became the first U.S. town to get government money to move because of global warming. Eighteen months later, what started as a model has become a warning. Even as the federal government rewrites climate policy, the greatest challenge to the project may nonetheless be the people it's meant to help. Mathew Sanders, head of the resilience program at Louisiana's Office of Community Development and the project's chief, said that Isle de Jean Charles will demonstrate the viability of such efforts. "We're going to find out the answer to that question, one way or another," he said. Failure would be all the more striking for the stakes involved. President Barack Obama's administration awarded Louisiana $48 million to move fewer than 40 families, most of them members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe; the state said it wants to generate "a radical rethinking of the nation's coastal land use and development patterns." But President Donald Trump has begun reversing Obama's efforts to curb emissions, including leaving the Paris climate accord. His administration has told agencies to stop factoring climate change into decisions and targeted a program to help Indian tribes adapt to extreme weather. Those shifts reflect the administration's refusal to acknowledge scientific consensus. Trump's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, told coal executives last week that he would start a "red team-blue team" exercise to challenge the very notion that greenhouse gases are warming the planet. Trump's actions are likely to increase pressure on coastal communities to consider whether, and how, to pull back from the water. "This is the fate of cities throughout the U.S., as well as the world, and we've got to figure it out," said Robin Bronen, a University of Alaska researcher who has worked with native communities seeking similar government-funded relocations. The July 1 meeting revealed three crucial fault lines. The first was definitional: Who is part of a community? In a place ravaged by decades of severe weather, that question is anything but abstract. Isle de Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906 ED_001523_00004073-00003 Jean Charles has been shrinking not just in acres but in population. Yet the state defined residents only as those who lived on the island when Hurricane Isaac struck in 2012. The meeting was attended by current and former residents, and tension grew as state employees distributed ballots for a new site--but only to people who attested that they that they lived on the island since Isaac. Chantelle Comardelle's parents left in 1986, after Hurricane Juan flooded their trailer. She said she was hospitalized with asthma, and doctors advised her parents to move. "I did not leave by choice," she said. "Why can't I get a preference on a site?" asked Comardelle, now the 35-year-old secretary of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribal council. Ray Hendon, who left before Isaac, said he couldn't afford to stay: The sole road is often impassable after heavy rain, which kept him from his job. "I had to move," he said. "We can't afford to move," shot back Amy Handon, whose last name is a variation on a common local theme. "Everybody here is gonna show everybody else respect," Sanders insisted. The warning had no obvious effect. The debate subsided only when the focus shifted to an even more contentious question: What would the state do with the island? Some residents said they believe Louisiana wants to turn the island into a resort. "That's what we heard--after everybody moves, the state is going to take it over," said Comardelle's father, Wenceslaus Billiot Jr. That fear was voiced repeatedly July 1. Sanders and his boss, Pat Forbes, who runs the Office of Community Development, seemed unsure howto dispel it. "We have said over and over again, you are going to get to keep the land that's here,' said Forbes. "The state has absolutely no interest in owning the island." The third fear was the most fundamental: How could residents be sure that their new home would really be better? Would they like living there? Thirty-five miles north and half a world away, Sanders and his team selected as the candidates three sugarcane fields nestled among highways, oil and gas facilities and residential subdivisions. The day before the meeting, Jacob Giardina, a local developer who owns a 50 percent stake in two of the properties, showed a visiting reporter around. Each tract had long rows of cane, punctuated by drainage canals and patches of trees along their edges. "It's some of the highest land that's left in the area," Giardina said, though sections still flood occasionally. The third property, owned by a New Orleans lawyer and her family, was even lower, with parts as little as two feet above sea level. The state had faced a dilemma. Build too close to Isle de Jean Charles, and residents would remain Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906 ED_001523_00004073-00004 exposed. Build too far north, and fewer would move. Compromise meant a relatively flood-prone site that could nonetheless cost $30 million. Albert Naquin, who is chief of the tribe and lives off the island, brought a photograph of one site after a rainstorm. Water filled the fields. "I just wanted to let you all know," he said. Edison Dardar said the locations were too far away, and he would prefer that Sanders just give him a million dollars. Sanders demurred. Somebody in the crowd gamely suggested half a million. It was midday now, and the temperature had reached 91 degrees; attention was dwindling. Residents had begun talking to each other, rehashing disputes. Forbes took the microphone. "This is a great turnout," he said. "I'm so thrilled so many people came, and thanks for coming and participating. This is important." By that point, nobody seemed to be listening. 2017 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission Court Revives EPA Methane Regulation on Oil, Gas Drillers Posted July 03, 2017, 01:32 P.M. ET By David Schultz A federal appeals court has revived an Obama-era EPA methane regulation on the oil and gas industry after the Trump administration tried to place it on hold. This means oil and gas drillers may have to comply with this regulation despite earlier indications they wouldn't have to. The regulation at issue requires oil and gas drillers to boost their monitoring for leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It was enacted in the final months of the Obama administration as part of its Climate Action Plan. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will reconsider this regulation and moved to place its upcoming compliance deadlines on hold. A three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, however, ruled July 3 that the EPA could not impose a three-month delay on implementing the regulation, which means its upcoming compliance deadlines may go into effect after all. Canada Seeks to Go Beyond International Maritime Arctic Rules Posted July 03, 2017, 02:38 P.M. ET By Peter Menyasz Ships in Arctic waters would still be required to meet pollution-prevention rules that go beyond internationally agreed upon standards, Canada proposed. Draft regulations to adopt the International Maritime Organization's Polar Code would require ship Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906 ED_001523_00004073-00005 owners to meet Canada's stringent current standards for waste, sewage, and oil pollution, the government said. The proposed Arctic Shipping Safety and Pollution Prevention Regulations would continue to prohibit the discharge of any waste, oil, noxious liquid substances and untreated sewage from ships in Canadian Arctic waters except where specifically authorized, but would add any stronger measures included in the Polar Code, Transport Canada said July 1. "Although Canada has had its own unique domestic Arctic shipping regime based on the central tenets of precautionary ship safety and pollution prevention since the early 1970s, this regime contains certain measures that are now outdated and require revision to reflect advancements in ship design and technology," the department said. The regulations would repeal Canada's existing regime for protecting Arctic waters, the Arctic Shipping Pollution Prevention Regulations, but many of the existing requirements that go beyond the provisions in the Polar Code are reproduced in the new regulations, it said. The Shipping Federation of Canada, which represents owners, operators, and agents in all sectors of the shipping industry, did not respond to a June 30 request for comment from Bloomberg BNA on the proposal. The government noted that it had consulted with industry since 2013 on developing the Polar Code and how Canada would implement its provisions. An earlier draft of the proposed regulations was presented during Transport Canada's Canadian Marine Advisory Council meeting in April 2016 The regulations are open to public comment through Sept. 14. Canada was instrumental in developing the Polar Code, or International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters, adopted by the International Maritime Organization in May 2015 through amendments to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the International Convention on the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL), the government said. Canada has since taken steps under each of those conventions to be bound to the Polar Code's safety-related technical amendments on Jan. 1,2018, it said. However, Canada would only be bound by the pollution-prevention amendments to MARPOL on Arctic waters after giving its express approval to the IMO, it said. More Stringent Measures Maintained The regulations would adopt all of the Polar Code's safety-related requirements, but only those pollution provisions that add to or improve Canada's existing Arctic shipping pollution-prevention regime, the government said. For example, the code prohibits the discharge of oil or oily mixtures, but that would duplicate the existing provisions in Canada's rules, it said. On the other hand, Canada's current regime allows releases of untreated sewage, but the regulations adopt the more stringent rules in the code that only permit discharges from vessels of 400 gross tons or more or certified to carry more than 15 persons, it said. Specific prohibitions that would go beyond the Polar Code's requirements include: discharges of oil, unlike the code's allowances for discharges of ballast containing up to 5 parts per Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906 ED_001523_00004073-00006 million of oil, as well as oily water from machinery for certain vessels operating in Arctic waters for more than 30 days; carriage of certain noxious liquid substances, identified in the International Code for the Construction and Equipment of Ships Carrying Dangerous Chemicals in Bulk, on vessels built after Jan. 1,2017, unless separated from the outer shell; deposits of garbage, other than food waste under certain conditions; Adoption of the Polar Code is not expected to impose significant costs on industry or government as, other than some exceptions and improvements, the draft regulations are largely equivalent to Canada's existing regime, the government said. Any additional costs to industry would be due to new vessel safety requirements, not the pollution prevention rules, it said. Obama in Indonesia Takes Swipe at Trump on Paris Climate Accord Posted July 03, 2017, 8:40 A.M. ET By Karlis Salna Former U.S. President Barack Obama has pointed to the importance of the Paris climate accord while criticizing Donald Trump for pulling the world's biggest economy out of the pact. Trump said last month he would withdraw from the pact and seek to negotiate a better deal, in a move that attracted widespread criticism from counterparts in Europe and elsewhere. The decision by Trump to walk away from the 2015 agreement was also criticized by business leaders, with some describing it as a setback for the environment. "In Paris, we came together around the most ambitious agreement in history to fight climate change," Obama said July 1 in a speech at the opening of the Fourth Congress of the Indonesian Diaspora in Jakarta. He said it was "an agreement that even with the temporary absence of American leadership will still give our children a fighting chance." "The challenges of our times, whether it's economic inequality, changing climate, terrorism, mass migration; these are really challenges and we're going to have to confront them together," he said. Obama, who has been holidaying in Indonesia and on June 30 met with President Joko Widodo, also warned in remarks July 1 against rising sectarian politics around the world, as well as growing discrimination based on race and ethnicity. "There are going to be some big decisions to make about Indonesia and about the United States and about the world in the years to come," he said. "It's been clear for a while that the world is at a crossroads, at an inflection point." He said in Jakarta there had been "enormous progress" which had occurred "in part because of the stability that the United States helped support here in the Asia Pacific." Global Challenges But the former president said there are also challenges, and that globalization and technology had created problems and "shifts in the foundations of societies" and in politics both in developing and developed countries. Sierra Club v. EPA, 1:17-cv-01906 ED_001523_00004073-00007 "The world is more prosperous than ever before, but this has also brought significant changes that are dangerous." "We start seeing a rise in sectarian politics, we start seeing a rise in an aggressive kind of nationalism, we start seeing both in developed and developing countries an increased resentment about minority groups and the bad treatment of people who don't look like us or practice the same faith as us." "We start seeing discrimination against people based on race or ethnicity or religion." Those threats must be confronted, Obama said. Obama, who spent four years in Indonesia as a child, met with Widodo, known as Jokowi, at Bogor on the outskirts of the capital. "I always found Jokowi to be a man of quiet but firm integrity and somebody who sincerely wants what's right by all Indonesians," he said. Their meeting touched on issues such as infrastructure and economic development, according to Obama, who said July 1 that the U.S. and Indonesia shared the common values of "pluralism and tolerance and openness and rule of law." 2017 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Used with permission Brazil Companies Get Extension for Mine Spill Settlement Posted July 03, 2017, 7:55 A.M. ET By Michael Kepp A Brazilian judge gave Samarco Mineracao and two other companies four more months to finalize an agreement to pay for environmental damages and compensate those hurt by the 2015 rupture of a mining waste reservoir. Samarco Mineracao, the mining company that operates the reservoir, and co-owners Brazil's Vale S.A. and the Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton Ltd., have until Oct. 30 to settle with federal prosecutors in Minas Gerais state, federal Judge Mario de Paula Franco Junior of the 12th regional federal court in Belo Horizonte ruled. The delay, issued June 29 on the eve of the original deadline, was due to "the complexities of the issues being dealt with," the judge wrote. The tailings reservoir collapsed in November 2015 dumping 62 million cubic meters of iron-ore waste in Minas Gerais state, triggering a flood that killed 19 people, flattening a village of 600, and polluting the Doce River. The Environment Ministry called it Brazil's "worst environmental catastrophe." The settlement will dismiss a 2016 lawsuit, filed by federal prosecutors, seeking 155 billion reais ($47 billion) in damages from the accident, as well as a second lawsuit seeking 20 billion reais ($6 billion). 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