Environmental Law ReSource : Environmental Lawyer & Attorney : Reed Smith Law Firm : Climate Change, Sustainability

This post was written David Wagner.

Please join us for our Second Quarterly Report on Climate Change from 12 to 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday, July 15. In this one-hour teleseminar, returning speakers Larry Demase and Jennifer Smokelin, joined by Todd Maiden and David Wagner, will provide a regulatory update on significant international, national and state issues concerning climate change and the future of GHG regulation.

Following up on speculation regarding summer strategy for passing energy and climate legislation, planned topics include:

• An inclusive status report on Congressional action with regard to comprehensive climate regulation (including the Kerry-Lieberman bill)
• The status of the GHG cap-and-trade scheme under AB 32 in California
• An update on the latest regulatory developments in Carbon Capture and Storage
• Plus a special discussion titled, "Preparing to Build Offset Projects in the United States; Criteria and Lessons Learned from the CDM"

To register for the teleseminar, please click here.

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This post was written by Nicolle Snyder Bagnell and Ariel Nieland.

According to a press release this week by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the "Pennsylvania State Police placed 250 commercial vehicles out of service" earlier this month as part of an effort to enforce various environmental and traffic safety laws in areas that have seen an increase in heavy truck traffic as a result of Marcellus Shale drilling operations. Of the 1,137 trucks inspected, waste water trucks received the highest proportion of citations and written warnings. Commissioner Frank E. Pawlowski explained in a June 23 announcement that because hydro-fracking requires substantial volumes of water to be delivered to and from well sites, the number of waste water trucks, in particular, on Pennsylvania roads has increased significantly.

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This post was written by David Wagner.

On June 18, the European Chemicals Agency added eight substances to its Candidate List of “Substances of Very High Concern” under REACH, bringing the total to 38. A chemical’s placement on the Candidate List may lead to the phase out or restriction of that substance. The newly added substances are ammonium dichromate, boric acid, disodium tetraborate, potassium chromate, potassium dichromate, sodium chromate, tetraboron disodium heptaoxide, and trichloroethylene.

Although these substances are not formally restricted, the addition of substances to the Candidate List triggers obligations for manufacturers and importers. Most noteworthy is the requirement to provide safety data sheets to their customers for listed substances. Producers of products containing the substances must also provide safe-use information to consumers on request.  Additional obligations, including future requirements, can be found here.

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This post was written by Nicolle Snyder Bagnell and Ariel Nieland.

Starting in July, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) will begin holding a series of public information meetings to discuss a newly proposed study of the potential adverse effects of hydro-fracking on drinking water, including one scheduled at the Hilton Garden Hotel in Southpointe, Pennsylvania on July 22 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Other meetings are in Fort Worth, Texas on July 8; Denver, Colorado on July 13; and Binghamton, New York on August 12. The purpose of the meetings is to provide the public with information about the study itself, which is still in its initial planning stages, as well as to solicit comments on its design and scope. According to USEPA, "[n]atural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy future and hydraulic fracturing is one way of accessing this vital resource." However, due to the "serious concerns" that have been raised about the possible impact of hydro-fracking on human health and the environment, the relationship between the fracking technique, which involves the pumping of frac fluid (water and chemicals) and sand into shale formations to create fractures through which natural gas can flow to production wells, and its effects on water supplies needs to be better understood.

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This post was written by David Wagner.

For the application of pesticides, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is taking a new position – it now aims to bring pesticide applicators under the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) permitting program. Earlier this month, USEPA released a draft CWA National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) pesticide general permit for point source discharges from the application of pesticides to waters of the United States. Under the Bush Administration, USEPA had issued a rule stating that these Clean Water Act permits were not required for applications of pesticides to U.S. waters. An appeals court decision vacated the rule in April 2009 and triggered the development of this proposal.

USEPA estimates that the court’s decision will require approximately 365,000 pesticide applicators nationwide, including farmers, land managers and other entities, to obtain NPDES permits by April 2011. The draft pesticide general permit covers applicators of biological pesticides and chemical pesticides that leave a residue in four categories of pesticide uses:

• Mosquito and other flying insect pest control
• Aquatic weed and algae control
• Aquatic nuisance animal control
• Forest canopy pest control

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This post was written by David Wagner.

Indicating growing federal interest in carbon capture and storage, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking public comment on proposals to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions from electric power plants in Texas and West Virginia. In a June 2 notice, DOE announced that it intends to prepare an environmental impact statement on a plan to provide about $350 million for the Texas Clean Energy Project, a proposed combined power and chemical plant near Odessa, Texas, through the Clean Coal Power Initiative. The environmental impact statements will help the Department determine whether to provide funding for the project.

According to a another notice published on June 7, DOE intends to produce an environmental impact statement on a plan to provide up to $334 million for a West Virginia plant, about half of the total cost. The West Virginia project involves fitting the existing Mountaineer coal-fired power plant, operated by American Electric Power near New Haven, with carbon dioxide capture and storage. As with the proposed Texas project, the Department would provide funding for the project through the Clean Coal Power Initiative, a program to provide partial financing for new technologies that can help utilities reduce their emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and greenhouse gases from power plants.

Information on public meetings and comment submission deadlines is available in the notices.

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This post was written by David Wagner.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) recently posted two reports concluding that, with substantive changes to laws governing subsurface ownership rights and long-term liability issues, Pennsylvania’s geology could store carbon dioxide in a cost-competitive and manageable way. The reports also concluded that another key step is to identify specific storage areas.

A carbon capture and storage (CCS) network would collect carbon dioxide from coal-fired electricity generating plants and other industrial sources, compress it into a liquid, and then transport it through pipelines deep underground where it would be injected into the rock formations or other suitable geologic features.

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This post was written by David Wagner.

In the past two weeks, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has revised its online registration tool and clarified several issues, including the definition of “intermediate”.

REACH-IT, the Agency’s online registration tool, will now allow the members of a joint submission, when attempting to register their substances, to submit their dossiers as soon as the lead dossier has been accepted for processing. Under REACH, companies producing or importing the same substance must prepare a joint registration and nominate a lead registrant who will submit the registration dossier to ECHA. Prior to the change, ECHA would have had up to three months to review and process the dossier before issuing a registration number. Under the initial procedure, companies other than the lead registrant would have been unable to submit their own registration without first receiving the registration number. Now, with the change, ECHA stated that “members of a joint submission do not need to wait until the lead registrant has been informed that his dossier is complete and received the registration number before members can submit their dossiers.”

Also, based on some confusion among industry groups, ECHA restated the meaning of the term “intermediate." ECHA underlined that “an intermediate is a substance used in the manufacturing of another substance whereby the intermediate is itself transformed into that other substance” and added that “substances used in the production of articles cannot be regarded as intermediates.” Intermediates must be registered under REACH but are subject to lesser data collection and submission requirements than non-intermediate substances.

Under REACH, by November 30, 2010, registration dossiers must be submitted for substances manufactured in, or imported into, the EU in volumes of 1,000 metric tons or more per year, and for some hazardous substances at lower volumes.

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This post was written by Ariel Nieland.

The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission voted unanimously yesterday to pass two new regulations that require energy companies to disclose all chemicals used in the fracking process as well as to identify all groundwater sources and state-licensed wells in proximity to well heads. One of the major industry concerns over such disclosure requirements is the protection of trade secrets, i.e. what chemicals comprise each company's frac fluid and in what proportion. To address this concern, the regulations impose confidentiality requirements on state regulators in possession of proprietary information. The disclosure requirement is the first of its kind in the nation; however, other states, including Pennsylvania have proposed similar regulations.

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This post was written by David Wagner.

On May 28, the State of New York enacted the Electronic Equipment Recycling and Reuse Act, a law requiring all manufacturers that sell electronic equipment in the state to have in place a free, convenient electronic waste or recycling program by April 1, 2011. Under the new law, each manufacturer will have to recycle or reuse its market share of electronic waste by weight, based on its three-year average of annual sales in the state. They will also have to submit annual reports to the state documenting that they have met goals for collection and recycling. All electronics manufacturers must register with the state by January 1, 2011, and pay a $5,000 registration fee.

The new law, which preempts a New York City e-waste recycling law, covers televisions, VCRs, DVD and MP3 players, game consoles, fax machines, and computers and their peripherals such as monitors, keyboards, mice, scanners and printers.

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This post was written by Christopher Risetto, Henry King and Robert Helland.

In May, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the availability of more than $171 million in grants, cooperative agreements, and technology-investment agreements "to expand and accelerate the development, commercialization, and use of solar and water power technologies throughout the United States". This funding continues a strong emphasis in the DOE, since the passage of the Recovery Act, on projects that promote alternative energy development, sustainability, and green jobs. The goal is to further the development of "evolving technologies," i.e., those that are not existing commercial technologies. In this Client Alert, Reed Smith provides key details behind the two major initiatives included within these announcements, particularly what information is necessary to complete a competitive application.

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