New York’s Exxon climate fraud investigation widens

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has issued additional subpoenas to determine whether the company may have destroyed evidence.
Exxon is under investigation by attorneys generalDavid Hasemyer reports for Inside Climate News:

The probe of ExxonMobil by the New York Attorney General’s Office is widening. Investigators have taken depositions of company executives and issued additional subpoenas to determine whether the company may have destroyed evidence connected to an alias email used by former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson.
The disclosure was made Friday in arguments filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in a Manhattan federal court. He is seeking dismissal of a request by Exxon for an injunction that would halt his investigation into the oil giant involving whether it misled shareholders and the public about the risks of climate change.
Attorneys for Schneiderman did not elaborate in the 25-page document on the scope of the expanded investigation other than to suggest that it involved the recent disclosure that Tillerson, now U.S. secretary of state, used an email alias when discussing issues including climate change and the risk that it posed to the company.
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Single-use Styrofoam again banned by New York City


Janet Babin reports for NYC News:

For the second time in less than three years, New York City is instituting a ban on single-use Styrofoam containers.

The first ban on polystyrene took effect in July, 2015, but was challenged by a coalition recycling firms and plastics manufacturers. They sued the city arguing that the material is recyclable.

New York Supreme Court judge Margaret Chan agreed, overturning the ban before the Sanitation Department even had a chance to start handing out fines. She wrote that the industry had offered up a feasible recycling plan for the containers, and sent the city back to the drawing board.

The city’s new report issued late Friday again found that Styrofoam is impossible to be recycled economically.

The ban’s reinstatement came on the same day as a New York City Council committee held a hearing on a bill that would make Styrofoam take-out containers part of the city’s curbside recycling program. Dozens of New Yorkers filled the committee room to speak for or against.

The bill was backed by the Restaurant Action Alliance and the Dart Container Corporation, one of the largest manufacturers of polystyrene containers. Plastics manufacturers would pay the infrastructure costs to implement the recycling program.

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In Pa., fewer new wells drilling but more gas flowing



COURTESY OF FRACTRACKER ALLIANCE
Natural gas well behind a house in southwestern Pa.. Production reached 5.1 trillion cubic feet in 2016.

Susan Phillips reports for StateImpact: 

Pennsylvania’s shale gas drillers continued to break records for production in 2016, tapping about 5.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Although the increase in production was not as high as in previous years, it still represents an upward trend, while the number of new well permits are declining, according to data published this week by the Department of Environmental Protection. Pennsylvania still ranks second behind Texas in total volume of natural gas production.
The state’s annual oil and gas report is in electronic form for the first time as part of the department’s efforts to put more drilling data online in a publicly accessible format. It includes GIS information on well sites, and charts outlining trends over the past ten years. Continue Reading →
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Questions about Oyster Creek safety? Book this meeting

Patricia A. Miller reports for Brick Patch:

How safe was the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in 2016?
You can get some detailed answers from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission at a discussion slated for 6 p.m. on May 25 at the Holiday Inn in Manahawkin.
The NRC will discuss the Exelon-owned plant’s performance and the NRC’s oversight of the facility on Route 9 in Lacey Township.
NRC employees and resident inspectors on the site full-time will be on hand to answer any questions, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.
Sheehan said Oyster Creek operated safely during 2016, with no inspection findings or performance indicators outside of the normal range.
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Trump’s EPA puts insecticide rule for farmworkers on ice

         
A week after 50 farm workers were sickened by pesticides, the EPA punts on protecting them. 

Nathaniel Johnson writes for Grist:


In 2015, the EPA released an update to the “worker protection standard” that shields farm workers from insecticide poisoning — the first update in a quarter century. Now it’ll be pushed back for an indefinite period.

The new regulations would ban kids under 18 from mixing and spraying chemicals, mandate that workers get yearly safety training, and direct farmers to keep laborers farther from active pesticide spraying. 


The importance of worker safety standards was highlighted by the recent poisonings of cabbage pickers outside Bakersfield, California. A mist containing the pesticide chlorpyrifos blew over from a neighboring field and settled over them, hospitalizing at least one farmworker. 

The organization representing state departments of agriculture, which requested the delay shortly after Trump’s election, saying that regulators needed more time to prepare.


But worker advocates said that farmers and regulators had plenty of time to comply with the new standards. 


 “We think it took EPA way too long to come out with these rules,” said Earthjustice attorney Eve Gartner. “The fact that a year and a half after these rules are adopted, a new administration comes in and puts them on hold is just outrageous.” 


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Just what New Jerseyans don’t need: a new brand of tick

Another tick-borne disease has spread to New Jersey, and it may produce some strange side effects that could impact the way people eat.


Tom Davis reports for the Brick Patch:

A tick that produces a rash similar to that of Lyme disease has spread to New Jersey, and it may produce some strange side effects that could impact your diet.
The lone star tick produces southern tick-associated rash illness, or STARI, that can lead to fatigue, fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But there’s another potential symptom that you may not have expected: an allergic reaction to red meat.
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