This story was produced in partnership with Atlanta News First.

Thousands of warehouse workers across the U.S. are likely regularly exposed to the cancer-linked chemical ethylene oxide. More than half of the country’s medical equipment is sterilized with the compound, which the EPA considers a carcinogen. Ethylene oxide evaporates off the surface of these medical products after they’ve been sterilized, creating potentially dangerous concentrations of air pollution in the buildings where they’re stored.

By and large, the EPA does not regulate these buildings — in fact, regulators don’t even know where most of them are. The Office of Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency in charge of worker protection that is known by its acronym, OSHA, has also done relatively little to evaluate worker exposure in these warehouses. But last week, OSHA opened a new investigation into a Georgia warehouse that stores medical devices sterilized with ethylene oxide, raising questions about whether the federal government is beginning to respond more quickly to these risks. 

On March 13, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Douglas County sheriff’s office assisted OSHA in executing a search warrant at a warehouse leased by the medical device company ConMed in Lithia Springs, 17 miles west of Atlanta. The surprise inspection was initiated almost two weeks after a Grist and Atlanta News First investigation revealed that workers employed by ConMed had been unknowingly exposed to the chemical. Ambulances were routinely called to the facility as workers convulsed from seizures, lost consciousness, and had trouble breathing.

The workers sued the company in 2020, but the lawsuit was ultimately dropped earlier this year after a judge dismissed some of their claims, citing state labor laws. (Under Georgia law, once employees seek workers’ compensation from the state, they are barred from suing employers separately.) ConMed denies the lawsuit’s allegations that it knowingly exposed workers to ethylene oxide and maintains that no individual medical emergency can be tied to exposure to the chemical. A company representative told Grist that it is “committed to fully complying” with all applicable regulations and conducts monthly ethylene oxide testing for its employees to review.

“Given our many years of full cooperation with OSHA, as well as the fact that OSHA has inspected our Lithia Springs facility five times since 2019, ConMed was surprised by the manner in which OSHA elected to inspect the facility on March 13,” a company representative told Grist in an email.

Ethylene oxide is a powerful fumigant, but it poses significant health risks and is linked to lung and breast cancers as well as diseases of the nervous system. Once medical devices are treated with ethylene oxide, the chemical continues to evaporate off the surface of the product as it moves through the supply chain. While the devices are trucked to warehouses, stored, and then shipped to hospitals, the products continue to quietly off-gas ethylene oxide, putting workers who come into contact with it at risk. 

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In a new rule it published last week, the EPA said that it will begin regulating toxic emissions from warehouses located on the same site as the sterilizer plants that actually apply the chemical. However, the agency argued that constraints stemming from the regulatory definition of the sterilization industry mean that offsite warehouses will be excluded from oversight. Even if the agency could clear that bureaucratic hurdle, it does not have “sufficient information to understand where these warehouses are located, who owns them, how they are operated, or what level of emissions potential they may have,” in the agency’s words.

What little the EPA knows about the threat from offsite warehouses was gleaned from a study conducted by state regulators in Georgia. That effort initially identified seven off-site warehouses and found that at least one of the state’s warehouses was emitting more ethylene oxide than the sterilization plant that first treats the medical products before sending them out for storage. Federal officials will begin gathering data on warehouses, according to the new EPA rule, and use it to determine whether a completely new regulation governing storage facilities should be developed. Such a process could take years, according to experts who spoke to Grist. All the while, warehouse workers across the country will continue to inhale ethylene oxide, in many cases without their knowledge. 

“Up until eight years ago, a lot of people had no idea that the sterilizer facility, which looks like your regular office park facility, was poisoning them,” said Marvin Brown, an attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice. “Now we have this additional issue of these warehouses that are continuing to poison people, and most people have no idea that they live next to one or work at one.”

Brown and other experts Grist spoke to said the agency could take one of two approaches to regulating warehouses. It could expand the definition of regulated facilities under the sterilizer rule it finalized earlier this month, or it could create a new category of facilities that covers warehouses and develop a separate rule. Both come with challenges. 

Reopening a new rule that has already been finalized is tricky, according to Scott Throwe, a former EPA enforcement official who worked on a number of rules that the EPA rolled out in the decade after amendments to the Clean Air Act were passed in 1990. “It’s a huge can of worms,” he said. “Once you open a rule, then you have to fix this and you have to fix this. It snowballs.”

Alternatively, the EPA could draft a new rule entirely, he added, but the agency is unlikely to do that either, because of the sheer amount of effort such a process would take. Throwe said that the EPA’s decision not to include offsite warehouse regulations in its new rule means that the agency doesn’t have either the time, the resources, or the will to tackle those emissions at this time.

“They’re going to declare victory on this one and move on,” he said. “They ain’t reopening that rule unless someone sues them.”

A spokesperson for the EPA said that the agency has an “incomplete list” of warehouses and that it has not conducted any risk assessments of them. As a next step, the agency expects to follow up with sterilization companies that did not provide detailed information about the location of their warehouses in response to a 2021 request. Once those responses are received, the agency plans to conduct emissions testing at some of the warehouses. If the agency decides to pursue a separate rule for warehouses, that process could take four to five years, the spokesperson said. 

The rule governing medical sterilization facilities was one of the first industry-specific air quality regulations that the EPA ever crafted. In its amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990, Congress published a list of 189 toxic air pollutants and asked the agency to develop regulations for each industry emitting at least one of them. Officials published the first standards for medical sterilizers in 1994 with little fanfare, according to Throwe. At the time, regulators and toxicologists were unaware of the true risks of ethylene oxide, which was used to fumigate a range of materials, from books to spices to cosmetics. With the new law giving the agency just a decade to craft dozens of new regulations, officials rushed the process, sacrificing the efficacy of some standards along the way.

“It was like drinking from a firehose,” Throwe said. “Unrealistic statutory deadlines became court-ordered deadlines.”

Drafting new regulations for a polluting industry, regulators quickly learned, was a lot of work. In addition to collecting and analyzing copious amounts of data on a particular type of plant’s emissions and configuration, officials had to consult engineering experts to understand what kinds of technologies they could ask companies to use to control their emissions. Decades later, the process for revising these regulations to better protect exposed communities is no different. It took the EPA almost a decade to publish its new sterilizer regulations, and it did so under a court-ordered due date after missing a previous deadline to update the rule. If the agency were to issue a new rule for warehouses, the time and resource commitment would be steep, Throwe said.

While the EPA is not responsible for worker safety, it has found a roundabout way to increase protections for those coming in close contact with ethylene oxide. Since ethylene oxide is a fumigant, the agency is also pursuing separate oversight under a federal pesticide law. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act requires the agency to evaluate pesticides every 15 years and determine where, how, and how much of a given pesticide may be used. In April, the EPA proposed a new set of requirements including reducing the amount of ethylene oxide used for sterilization and mandating that workers wear protective equipment while engaging in tasks where there is a high risk of exposure to the chemical. Since the law applies to all facilities where ethylene oxide is used — not just sterilization plants — warehouse workers could benefit from the requirements once it is finalized.  

Some state and local agencies are proactively regulating warehouses themselves. After the Georgia Environmental Protection Division found that one warehouse was estimated to emit about nine times as much ethylene oxide as the facility that sterilized it, the agency began trying to find similarly dangerous warehouses. After scouring the internet and reaching out to companies, the agency identified four warehouses that were emitting more ethylene oxide than permitted under state law. The agency is now in the process of issuing permits and requiring controls for those facilities. 

In Southern California, which has a large concentration of sterilization facilities, the local air quality regulator has included requirements for offsite warehouses in a rule that primarily targets sterilization plants. The rule categorizes warehouses into two tiers — those with an indoor space of 250,000 square feet or more and those with between 100,000 and 250,000 square feet. Depending on the size of the facility, the warehouses are subject to different reporting and monitoring requirements. In the course of developing the rule, the agency identified 28 warehouses that fall into one of these two tiers. The agency finalized the rule in December, and larger warehouses will be studied for a year to determine whether they emit significant amounts of ethylene oxide.

Editor’s note: Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A loophole in the EPA’s new sterilizer rule leaves warehouse workers vulnerable on Mar 22, 2024.

If you were to create a recipe for plastics, you’d need a very big cookbook. In addition to fossil fuel-based building blocks like ethylene and propylene, this ubiquitous material is made from a dizzying amalgam of more than 16,000 chemicals — colorants, flame retardants, stabilizers, lubricants, plasticizers, and other substances, many of whose exact functions, structures, and toxicity are poorly understood.

What is known presents many reasons for concern. Scientists know, for example, that at least 3,200 plastic chemicals pose risks to human health or the environment. They know that most of these compounds can leach into food and beverages, and that they cost the U.S. more than $900 billion in health expenses annually. Yet only 6 percent of plastic chemicals — which can account for up to 70 percent of a product’s weight — are subject to international regulations.

Over the past few months, a flurry of studies and reports have highlighted one group of substances as particularly problematic: “endocrine-disrupting chemicals,” or EDCs. These chemicals, released at every stage of the plastic life cycle, mimic hormones and interfere with the metabolic and reproductive systems. They were recently found in samples of plastic food packaging from around the world, and a study published last month linked them to 20 percent  the United States’ preterm births. 

The unchecked production, distribution, and disposal of plastics and other petrochemical-based products has led to “a perpetual cycle of human exposure to EDCs from contaminated air, food, drinking water, and soil,” Tracey Woodruff, a professor of reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this month. Philip Landrigan, a public health physician and professor of epidemiology at Boston College, told Grist that the crisis has “quietly and insidiously gotten worse while all attention has been focused on the climate.”

Although some policymakers have taken steps to protect people from EDCs — the European Commission, for example, in 2022 proposed stricter labeling regulations that would require companies to alert consumers of their hazards — many in the field believe the overarching response has been incommensurate with the scale of the crisis. Because so many plastics and petrochemical products are traded internationally, some endocrinologists and public health authorities believe a global approach is needed. 

“This is an international problem that is affecting our world and its future,” said Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Texas, Austin.

Gore and others are appealing to the negotiators of the U.N. global plastics treaty, who meet for their next round of talks next month in Ottawa, Canada. There is increasing interest among delegates for a treaty that not only protects the environment, but public health — a step that the international nature of the EDC problem makes clear must be taken.

The endocrine system is complex, involving a series of glands throughout the body that secrete chemical messengers called hormones. These molecules lock onto a cell’s receptors to induce some kind of response: perhaps the production of another hormone, or the correction of a nutrient imbalance. Endocrine hormones control a long list of necessary human functions like growth, metabolism, reproduction, lactation, and managing blood sugar —  any malfunction, let alone absence, of these processes can lead to health problems like infertility, diabetes, hypertension, and death.

EDCs tamper with the endocrine system, often by mimicking hormones to trigger the corresponding response, or by blocking them to prevent it from happening at all. Research has identified at least 1,000 of these substances in pesticides, inks, building materials, cosmetics, and plastic products, but the nonprofit Endocrine Society, whose members include physicians and scientists, calls this “only the tip of the iceberg” due to the enormous number of chemicals yet to be tested.

Some of the most common or familiar EDCs found in plastics include phthalates, used to make the material more flexible; bisphenol A, or BPA, used to make strong, clear products; and PFAS, a class of more than 14,000 chemicals used to make food containers, outdoor clothing, and other products oil- or water-repellent. Other EDCs of concern include organophosphate ethers, benzotriazoles, and PBDEs, all of which are used to make plastic products fire- and light-resistant. 

What makes this particularly worrisome is that humans can be exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals simply by touching plastic, inhaling microplastics within dust, and eating food or drinking water that has been in contact with plastic. According to one 2022 study, more than 1,000 chemicals — including many EDCs — commonly used in packaging like takeout containers can migrate into food. A separate study from 2021 found that more than 2,000 chemicals can leach from a single plastic product into water.

As noted in a report published last month by the Endocrine Society and the nonprofit International Pollutants Elimination Network, or IPEN, exposure to endocrine-disrupting substances can occur throughout the plastic life cycle. Fracking for oil and gas — the material’s main ingredients — uses more than 750 chemicals, many of which are known or suspected endocrine disruptors, and people living near these operations may have an elevated risk of developmental or reproductive problems. More EDCs are released during plastics manufacturing, sometimes in air and water emissions, other times on the backs of nurdles, tiny plastic pellets that can be shaped into larger products. These pebble-sized pieces often spill directly from factories or during transportation, and can release their chemicals once in the environment.

At the end of the plastic life cycle, incinerators and landfills can release PFAS, dioxins, PCBs, and other endocrine disruptors as air or soil pollution — some of which may contaminate nearby food supplies. Littered plastics tend to make their way into the ocean, where they break down into microplastics and leach some of those same EDCs, along with others like dibutyltin and mercury.

Those facing the greatest risk tend to be residents of low-income communities and people of color. “They’re more likely to be living in areas where there’s more pollution,” Gore said — like from nearby plastics manufacturing facilities or waste disposal sites. Plus, she added, low-income families often live without easy access to fresh produce and are more dependent on foods packaged in plastic. “We know people of lower socioeconomic status have disproportionate exposures.”

Reducing exposure to endocrine disruptors presents a challenge for several reasons. The biggest is the U.S. and other countries’ lax approach to chemical regulation, which doesn’t usually require that new compounds be tested for endocrine-disrupting properties or other safety concerns before they can enter production and get incorporated into products. “Right now we operate on the basis that all chemicals are innocent until proven guilty,” Landrigan told Grist.

Even when scientists agree that something is harmful, bureaucratic delays and industry lobbying often impede regulation. The Toxics Substances Control Act, or TSCA — the United States’ main chemical law — has for example only banned a handful substances in the nearly 50 years since it was passed, a period in which at least 100,000 new chemicals have entered the market, according to Landrigan. This is partly due to the unrealistic expectation that scientists draw a direct, causal link between a substance and specific health effects, which would require unethically exposing people to toxicants and observing the outcomes.

Another unfortunate side effect of that expectation is a phenomenon called “regrettable substitution,” where companies swap chemicals known to be harmful for lookalikes that haven’t been studied as extensively. Later research often reveals the substitute is just as toxic as the original, if not more so. This has occurred on a wide scale with EDCs such as PFAS, as well as bisphenols — although now that several countries have restricted BPA from plastic products like baby bottles, products labeled (often inaccurately) as free from that substance are now being manufactured with bisphenol S, despite research suggesting it also disrupts the endocrine system.

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Some scientists accuse the chemical industry of “weaponizing uncertainty” to delay or kill regulation, a strategy they liken to Big Oil’s campaign to raise doubt about the reality of climate change. But for many EDCs in particular, they agree there is strong enough associative evidence of their harms — from cell and animal studies, as well as observations in people who have been exposed to the chemicals at work or as a result of an accident — to warrant bans and restrictions.

Scientists and public health advocates have been trying to reform chemical regulations for years now, but the U.N.’s global plastics treaty presents an opportunity to do so on an international level. “A global treaty can’t reform TSCA,” Landrigan said, “but it can set benchmarks telling countries that if they want to ship their products internationally, they have to conform to certain standards.”

One leading proposal for the treaty is that negotiators create a comprehensive inventory of the many chemicals used in plastic production, along with a list of “chemicals of concern” identifying which should be prioritized for phasing out. According to Sara Brosché, a science adviser for IPEN, this list should include classes of chemicals rather than individual ones. “EDCs would be one very clear category” to be phased out, she told Grist, along with carcinogens and so-called “persistent organic pollutants” that don’t break down naturally in the environment.

Scientists also support listing and phasing out “polymers of concern,” the types most likely to contain EDCs and other hazardous substances. Polyvinyl chloride, for example — frequently used in plastic water pipes — can expose people to endocrine disruptors including benzene, phthalates, and bisphenols.

So far, these ideas have only been suggested for inclusion in the treaty; negotiators don’t even have a first draft yet, and are still debating whether the primary goal should be to “end plastic pollution” or to “protect human health and the environment … by ending plastic pollution.” The existing text, a laundry list of nearly every suggestion made thus far, leaves plenty of room for countries to simply “minimize,” “manage,” or vaguely “regulate” hazardous plastic chemicals, rather than eliminate them altogether. The final draft is due by year’s end, though many expect an extension, with further negotiations continuing into 2025.

To Landrigan and many others, the most important thing is that the treaty include a global cap on plastic production, which could triple by 2060 to more than 1.2 billion metric tons annually if current trends continue. That’s the weight of more than 118,000 Eiffel Towers. “We see the current exponential increase in plastic production as simply not sustainable,” he said. “It will overwhelm the planet.” Less plastic will mean fewer opportunities for EDC exposure, he added. And that will surely save lives.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Plastic chemicals are inescapable — and they’re messing with our hormones on Mar 22, 2024.

When it comes to air quality, neighboring countries are in it together. In 2023, wildfire smoke from across the Canadian border became a primary source of air pollution in major U.S. cities, according to a report released this week. 

The annual World Air Quality Report by IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company, showed that U.S. residents enjoyed cleaner air in 2023 than 75 percent of the 134 countries and territories measured. However, the report also found that most of the U.S. had almost double the levels of air pollution deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization, or WHO. The overall amount of unhealthy air nationwide crept up slightly from the previous year, but some cities, such as Milwaukee, saw up to a 50 percent increase. The report found that although air quality still suffered from the usual climate-change worsening culprits, such as fossil fuel industries, smoke from Canadian wildfires was behind many of these spikes.

Extended exposure to air pollution is deadly, causing more than 8 million estimated deaths worldwide every year, and has been linked to a myriad of health problems, such as respiratory diseases and cancers. Studies have shown days with higher air pollution can lower student test scores and spike emergency room visits for heart problems. 

“We really want to encourage people to treat air quality just like they would treat the weather, look to see what the air quality is before you spend extensive time outdoors,” Christi Chester Schroeder, an air quality science manager at IQAir, told Grist.

For its report, IQAir collected data from over 30,000 monitoring stations around the world. Annual pollution averages for each country and territory were based on measured amounts of PM2.5, or fine particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or smaller. When inhaled, these tiny, invisible particles can enter the lungs and bloodstream. According to guidelines set by WHO, yearly air pollution averages should not exceed 5 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter of air. U.S. residents are exposed to almost double that.

For most of 2023, PM2.5 levels across the country averaged about 9.1 micrograms per cubic meter of air, with the worst air concentrated in large cities including Washington, D.C., and New York City. The report showed pollution levels spiked in the summer, when hot, stagnant air and sunshine can interact with pollutants to create pockets of unhealthy air. In Washington, D.C., and Chicago, PM2.5 levels more than doubled in June, up to over five times WHO guidelines. Columbus, Ohio, was the most polluted U.S. city for the second year in a row. 

But the IQAir report also contained good news for the U.S.: Aggressive wildfire mitigation efforts seem to be working, which led to a less severe fire season and cleaner air on the West Coast as compared to previous years. In Portland, Oregon, PM2.5 levels dropped by almost 40 percent, while Los Angeles saw a 10 percent decrease. Of the 25 most populated cities in the U.S., Las Vegas had the cleanest air.

According to Schroeder, “A big theme of this year’s report was transboundary haze,” a term that describes when smoke travels across borders. This past summer, Canada endured its worst wildfire season on record. As the blazes tore through 5 percent of the country’s forests, they created huge plumes of soot that drifted into the eastern U.S., blanketing New York City in an orange haze and impacting air quality as far south as Florida.

“The wind is the most efficient transportation system on earth,” said Joel Thornton, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Washington. Even though large wildfires have become an unsurprising reality, Thornton found that last year’s in Canada were unprecedentedly bad. As forests continue to be unseasonably drier and warmer due to climate change, the stage is set for these fires to get even worse, he said. “It’s a harbinger of what’s to come.” 

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized new standards for air pollution, bringing the annual average limit down from 12 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter of air to 9 micrograms. The new target still exceeds the WHO’s guidelines of 5 micrograms, but could still bring huge improvements. According to the Biden administration, the new rules would prevent an estimated 4,500 premature deaths every year and save billions in health costs. To reflect their tightened standards, the EPA also updated the Air Quality Index, a handy color-coded scale that runs from green (“good”) to maroon (“hazardous”). 

Experts like Thornton say that wildfires may hamper efforts to meet the EPA’s new standard, even as government regulations, such as the Clean Air Act, have made U.S. air safer than most of the world’s. “Wildfires are basically wiping out a lot of that progress,” Thornton said. A 2023 study published in Nature found that wildfire smoke undid almost 25 percent of air quality improvements since 2000. 

Currently, the EPA does not take pollution levels from wildfires into account in its regulatory actions, as part of an “Exceptional Event Rule” that kicks in when natural disasters skew environmental data. As the weather warms and fire season inches closer, fire management strategies may become key to sparing communities from blazes and unsafe air alike.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline It’s official: US air quality got worse in 2023 on Mar 22, 2024.

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New research by environmental scientists with Switzerland’s Food Packaging Forum Foundation has uncovered 68 per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) “forever chemicals” in food packaging — including plastic, paper and coated metal.

Used by manufacturers for decades in products like nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant fabrics, cosmetics, firefighting foam and food packaging, more than 12,000 of the human-synthesized chemical compounds are known to exist, according to the study.

“There are thousands of these chemicals,” said Birgit Geueke, co-author of the study and a senior scientific officer with Food Packaging Forum, as New Scientist reported. “We wanted to get a picture of what is known about the presence of PFAS in food packaging.”

Scientists have discovered that PFAS have adverse health impacts, leading to many being banned, reported Phys.org. Recent research has demonstrated that the toxic substances can migrate into food.

“Due to their unique chemistry, PFASs have enabled convenience in many parts of modern life. However, their molecular properties have also granted them hazardous properties, including persistence, raising alarms due to their ubiquitous presence as contaminants in food, drinking water, and the environment,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Today, various PFASs have been identified in sera from humans and wildlife globally. Exposure to some PFASs has been linked to a wide range of adverse health outcomes such as cancer, thyroid disease, decreased response to vaccination, and high cholesterol.”

The study, “Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Food Packaging: Migration, Toxicity, and Management Strategies,” was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

After compiling records on known PFAS in food packaging from the FCCmigex database, the research team found a total of 68 PFAS compounds — 61 had been previously banned from use in food packaging.

While examining the compounds found in food packaging, the team noted the lack of evidence as to why and how they ended up there.

“We utilized ToxPi to illustrate that hazard data are available for only 57% of the PFASs that have been detected in food packaging. For those PFASs for which toxicity testing has been performed, many adverse outcomes have been reported,” the researchers wrote. “The data and knowledge gaps presented here support international proposals to restrict PFASs as a group, including their use in food contact materials, to protect human and environmental health.”

The researchers recommended that a thorough review of food packaging be conducted, as well as the establishment of new rules and a method of enforcement for these pervasive and harmful chemicals.

“Ideally, a restriction would ban PFASs on a global scale to prevent the continued production and use in countries that lack legislation or the capacity for compliance monitoring,” the researchers wrote in the study. “A class-based phase-out of PFASs in food contact materials, including food packaging, would effectively protect public health while enabling the creation of a safe, circular economy.”

The post 68 PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found by Scientists in Food Packaging Worldwide appeared first on EcoWatch.

In a historic move, the Biden administration has announced new tailpipe emissions regulations, which call for a 56% reduction in the average carbon dioxide emissions of passenger cars, medium-duty vehicles and light-duty trucks by 2032.

The new rules will apply to vehicles with model years from 2027 to 2032 and beyond, a press release from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said.

“With transportation as the largest source of U.S. climate emissions, these strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “The standards will slash over 7 billion tons of climate pollution, improve air quality in overburdened communities, and give drivers more clean vehicle choices while saving them money.” 

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The updated standards will provide almost $100 billion in net benefits to society annually, with $13 billion in public health benefits from improved air quality, and reduced fuel, repair and maintenance costs of $62 billion.

When the new rules have been completely phased in, they will provide an estimated $6,000 in fuel and maintenance reductions per vehicle for the average driver.

“The President’s agenda is working. On factory floors across the nation, our autoworkers are making cars and trucks that give American drivers a choice – a way to get from point A to point B without having to fuel up at a gas station. From plug-in hybrids to fuel cells to fully electric, drivers have more choices today. Since 2021, sales of these vehicles have quadrupled and prices continue to come down. This growth means jobs, and it means we are moving faster and faster to take on the climate crisis,” said Ali Zaidi, national climate advisor to the Biden-Harris administration.

The rules expand on existing passenger car and light truck emissions standards by the EPA and are projected to produce 7.2 billion tons less carbon emissions through 2055 — four times the total transportation sector emissions for 2021. Ozone and fine particulate matter will also be reduced, lowering the occurrence of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, heart attacks, aggravated asthma and preventing as many as 2,500 premature deaths.

“Compared to the existing MY 2026 standards, the final MY 2032 standards represent a nearly 50% reduction in projected fleet average GHG emissions levels for light-duty vehicles and 44% reductions for medium-duty vehicles. In addition, the standards are expected to reduce emissions of health-harming fine particulate matter from gasoline-powered vehicles by over 95%. This will improve air quality nationwide and especially for people who live near major roadways and have environmental justice concerns,” the press release said.

Emissions from volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides will also be reduced by 75%, reported The Guardian.

However, stricter emissions are not happening fast enough, critics say, allowing automakers to keep producing gas-powered vehicles.

“This rule could’ve been the biggest single step of any nation on climate, but the EPA caved to pressure from big auto, big oil and car dealers, and riddled the plan with loopholes big enough to drive a Ford F150 through,” said Dan Becker, Center for Biological Diversity’s safe climate transport campaign director, as The Guardian reported.

The standards are predicted to help speed up the adoption of green vehicle technologies.

“The step EPA is taking today will slash climate pollution and air pollution,” said Amanda Leland, Environmental Defense Fund’s executive director, in the press release. “The U.S. has leapt forward in the global race to invest in clean vehicles, with $188 billion and nearly 200,000 jobs on the way… These clean car standards will help supercharge economic expansion and make America stronger.”

The post EPA Announces ‘Strongest-Ever Pollution Standards’ for Cars and Light-Duty Trucks appeared first on EcoWatch.

Before the Easter Bunny stocks up to fill baskets on March 31, he may want to note the uptick in prices for chocolate egg candies. While grocery costs have been increasing for many items, the increase in cost of chocolate is linked to climate change, experts say.

Extreme heat in West Africa has impacted cocoa crops, creating a decline in yields. Researchers with World Weather Attribution said the extreme heat, which led to temperatures being 4 degrees Celsius higher in February, was made 10 times more likely because of human-caused climate change. 

The heat led to drought, which local farmers said weakened the cacao trees. The crops were already vulnerable because of heavy rainfall from late 2023, The Guardian reported.

As a result, some popular Easter egg-shaped chocolates have increased in price by 50%, BBC reported. Further, cocoa prices have risen to $8,500 per metric ton this week, with just over one week until the holiday. In mid-March 2024, cocoa prices had already risen by more than double compared to last year, Reuters reported.

“Farmers in West Africa who grow the main ingredient of the Easter eggs many of us are looking forward to are struggling in the face of both extreme heat and rainfall,” said Amber Sawyer, energy and climate analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) in the UK, as reported by The Guardian. “Wealthy nations like the UK can provide support to developing countries [but] ultimately we have to reach net zero emissions. There are limits to the conditions in which crops can grow.”

The study by World Weather Attribution also revealed similar heat waves could happen in West Africa about every two years without greater action to curb fossil fuel-related emissions. Without climate change, the researchers noted this type of extreme heat would be a once-in-100-years event in West Africa.

The drought and extreme heat doesn’t just threaten crops, however. The study highlighted that a heat wave can be a “silent killer” that harms local populations, particularly because of a lack of investment to help countries become more resilient to extreme heat.

“Major investment is needed in Africa to build resilience to dangerous heat. The UN has estimated that the cost of adaptation for developing countries is between US$215-$387 billion per year this decade,” World Weather Attribution said in the study. “However, rich countries haven’t yet met the promises they have made to help developing countries become more resilient to the growing risks of climate change. In addition, these commitments fall drastically short of the finance required — in 2021, the global community spent just US$21 billion to help developing countries adapt to climate change.”

The post Chocolate Easter Eggs Are More Expensive This Year Due to Climate Change appeared first on EcoWatch.

The spotlight

When Grist writer Tik Root set out on a journey to decarbonize his home, he didn’t intend at first to document the effort. As a journalist covering climate, he’s had years of experience reporting on electrification, energy, and technology — and demystifying those often complex topics for the average consumer. But the decision to write about his own experiences as a homeowner attempting to ditch fossil fuels came about two-thirds of the way through what amounted to more than a yearlong process.

“I said, ‘OK, if I spend all my days on this and I’m learning so much, maybe other people will learn something, too,’” he recalled.

Residential energy use accounts for roughly one-sixth of total greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Our homes remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and natural gas in particular. But that’s beginning to change — electric heat pump sales are outpacing gas boilers, and some cities have passed resolutions banning the use of natural gas in new construction. Legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act has also sought to make it cheaper and more accessible for Americans to upgrade their home energy systems and appliances to more efficient ones.

Still, that doesn’t mean that renovating a home to be more climate-friendly is easy, or cheap, as Tik and his wife discovered. Even a pair of climate journalists encountered obstacles and tough decisions over the course of a process that took several times longer than they initially expected.

“Build in time,” Tik recommends to anyone pondering similar upgrades. “It’s gonna take longer than you think.”

He chronicled his and his wife’s experiences in a first-person feature for Grist, which published today — and he shared a few of his top takeaways for Looking Forward. In addition to budgeting more time than you think you’ll need, Tik recommended leaning on family and friends who have been early adopters of things like heat pumps, induction stoves, and solar panels.

“It’s only a matter of time — if not already — before someone on your block has a heat pump, and if you ask them about their process, you could probably skip a whole lot of steps,” he said. Shortly after he and his wife installed heat pumps on their two-story home in Burlington, Vermont, a neighbor who had noticed the contractor’s truck in their driveway called to ask about it and see if she could hire the same installer. “I think my neighbor probably saved three months of work,” Tik said. “And my friend is just about to do the same; my dad will do the same.”

A home’s heating system is the big-ticket item, in terms of financial investment and emissions-saving potential. For Tik and his wife, the journey leading up to installation involved a comparison of different models of heat pumps, a lengthy detour exploring rooftop solar (to offset some of the energy demands, and cost, of their new all-electric systems), and a brief moment of panic when they feared they’d have to upgrade their electrical panel. They worked through each of these decisions one by one, culminating in a successful — even joyful — installation in early January.

The heat pump setup that Tik and his wife chose is a “mini split” system. It consists of three condensers (one for each floor), installed outdoors, and ductwork in the attic to reach the upstairs bedrooms. Phillip Martin

We’ve pulled an excerpt from Tik’s feature below (lightly edited for clarity), highlighting some of the other, lower-lift projects that he and his wife tackled to begin weaning the full house off of natural gas. Check out the full feature, with all its twists and turns, here.

— Claire Elise Thompson

Our first foray into discarding gas was installing a heat pump water heater. It works a bit like an air conditioner in reverse by drawing warmth from the surrounding air to bring water up to temperature, and the technology is growing in popularity. Not only are heat pumps energy-efficient, they can also do a bit of dehumidification, which our musty basement sorely needed. The process went deceptively smoothly.

We gathered several quotes — something the [director of research for the electrification nonprofit Rewiring America] and others told me is critical to managing costs. The lowest was $2,825 to install a 50-gallon tank, a price that was on the high end of Energy Star guidance but hundreds less than the others. A $600 instant rebate from the state and an $800 post-purchase one from the city brought the cost to $1,425. I happened to have a friend who needed one too, so we both got another $150 off for doing them together. The IRA provides a tax credit of 30 percent of the total cost (up to $2,000), though we won’t get it until after we file our taxes.

All told, the bill will come to $428, plus a couple hundred more to have an electrician wire it. Installation took less than a day and the water heater is now humming happily in our basement. Although the emissions savings will be negligible because we still need our boiler for space heating, it was a confident first stride toward reducing our dependence on gas.

Buoyed by the success, we took aim at the stove and the dryer.

Electrifying appliances isn’t yet a major climate win. The average dryer uses around 2,000 cubic feet of natural gas a year, with CO2 emissions roughly equivalent to driving about 300 miles. Gas stoves consume about the same amount. At best, going electric fully displaces those greenhouse gases. But the advantages are even smaller beyond Vermont, where local utilities aren’t as clean. The nation still generates 60 percent of its electricity with fossil fuels (43 percent of that from natural gas) and until that changes, junking a gas stove is roughly a wash for the planet.

Our main motivation for jettisoning gas appliances was the blinking light on our air purifier. We’d read the research showing that cooking over gas produces benzene and nitrogen dioxide. But seeing that little diode change from a soft blue to a harsh red every time we cooked was a menacing reminder of the risks. It grew even more unsettling when we found out we’d become parents, as gas stoves have been linked to nearly 13 percent of the nation’s childhood asthma cases.

The consensus among climate experts and, perhaps equally importantly, chefs is that the best alternative is an induction stove, which uses electromagnetic energy to heat cookware. It requires less energy than a traditional electric range and offers greater temperature control. But as we started exploring options, we quickly realized the technology doesn’t come cheap. The least expensive models start at around $1,100, or almost twice the price of a basic gas stove. Advocates of the tech say prices should come down as it becomes more widespread, but that didn’t do us much good, and our city’s rebate was just $200. We hoped Black Friday would further blunt the financial blow, though that meant waiting a few months. We used the time to weigh whether we wanted features such as a convection oven (we did) and, come November, headed to Lowe’s.

Given my proclivity for buying power tools I don’t need, my wife hustled me directly to the appliances. Alas, the store had just one induction model on display, and it wasn’t the one we wanted. But the conventional stoves were similar enough that we could get a sense of how the induction version might feel in the kitchen. After much pressing, twisting, hemming, and hawing, we chose a Samsung induction model with knobs rather than buttons, which we knew from a relative’s experience could be finicky. The list price was $2,249, but we got it for nearly half off with the holiday sale.

On the way out, we solved our dryer dilemma when we happened upon a well-reviewed electric model similarly marked down to just $648. We pulled out our phones and compared it to a heat pump dryer, which would have used less electricity and spared us the trouble of installing another outlet and a vent. But aside from being considerably more expensive (even with an extra state rebate), the heat pump version had just half the capacity. Given the mountains of laundry newborns produce, we chose the traditional tech, with the hope that larger models are available next time we need a dryer.

Leaving the store, I nearly blew our savings on a track saw. Good job I showed restraint, as installing outlets to power our purchases was much more expensive than expected. The electrician charged more than $600 for the stove hookup, and the dryer outlet, when our basement revamp is ready to accommodate it, will likely run about the same. Although that’s about two-thirds the cost of appliances, we saw the benefits of ditching gas almost immediately.

My wife does most of the cooking and swoons when she switches on an induction burner. Water boils far faster than with the gas stove and even more quickly than in our electric kettle. “It feels almost instant,” she said. “The bubbles are crazy.” The heat is also precise enough to keep pasta sauce at a simmer and food perfectly warm while we gather our dinner plates.

Best of all, it’s been months since we’ve seen the red light on our air purifier.

— Tik Root

Read the full story here.

CORRECTION: In last week’s newsletter, about alternatives to synthetic fabrics, we failed to note that textile recycling company Renewcell filed for bankruptcy last month. Next steps for the company, its patented technology, and its stores of recycled material are uncertain.

More exposure

• Read: a previous Looking Forward newsletter on heat pumps
• Read: more Grist stories on home electrification — and how a shortage of electricians could pose a barrier to widespread electrification at the rate and scale we need
• Read: an article exploring both common hurdles and incentives for electrification (Canary Media)
• Listen: to a radio segment about the growing trend of electrification, the most current tech, and what it means for building emissions (KQED)
• Check out: the personal electrification planner from the nonprofit Rewiring America

A parting shot

Although Tik and his wife ultimately decided against putting solar panels on their roof, they are now looking into community solar — an arrangement that lets neighbors buy into a larger solar installment in a centralized location, like a school or a church. Here’s one such project on Crystal Spring Farm in Brunswick, Maine. The panels are cooperatively owned, and they provide energy to the farm as well as several nearby families that wouldn’t otherwise have access to solar power individually.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Cristina Spanò

Spotlight: Phillip Martin; Grist

Parting shot: Portland Press Herald / Getty Images

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A journey into home electrification on Mar 21, 2024.

This story was produced by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and is being co-published with Grist.

Santander exploited loopholes in its own climate policy in order to help raise billions for facilities relying on fracked U.S. gas. The bank then quietly watered down the same policy, making it easier to finance fracking directly in future, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, or TBIJ, can reveal.

The financing was for projects relating to liquified natural gas, or LNG, terminals, huge industrial plants that take gas — much of it from the region’s many fracking sites — and cool it into liquid form before loading it on to tankers to be shipped around the world.

If all the Gulf Coast’s numerous LNG projects are completed, they would form a “carbon bomb” with associated annual emissions of over a billion metric tons of CO2, more than that of Russia. Local residents have complained of air pollution, dirty water, and serious health risks for their families.

Last year, Santander was one of the banks involved in raising at least $28 billion for LNG terminals on the Texas and Louisiana coastlines. At the time, its policy prohibited the financing of projects involved in the expansion of oil and gas extraction from fracking. While the LNG projects did not directly involve fracking, they rely on fracked gas and form an essential part of the production and distribution process.

Earlier this year, Santander then changed its policy without announcing it publicly. A footnote was added to its “prohibited activities” section, stating that exceptions in relation to fracking “may be considered” subject to factors including energy security and local development.

The bank also rowed back on its acknowledgment of the “foundational” role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, in international climate agreements such as the Paris Accord. The IPCC is recognized as the world’s most authoritative scientific body on the causes and consequences of climate change.

The news follows TBIJ’s revelations that Santander helped coordinate a billion-dollar bond to expand the operations of PetroPerú, a national oil company with a major pipeline slicing through vital wetlands supposedly protected by the bank’s climate policy.

Santander told TBIJ: “While we cannot comment on specific clients or transactions, all financing decisions are guided by a strict policy framework approved by our board of directors. Our lending policies are reviewed regularly by the board to ensure the bank can support clients and markets in different stages of transition and help stimulate the growth needed to enable the required investment.”

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Quentin Aubineau, a policy analyst at financial campaign group BankTrack, described Santander’s policy as “highly problematic.” Its prohibited activities focus narrowly on gas extraction, he explained, but new LNG terminals — which the policy allows the financing of — require an increase in extraction to make them economically viable.

“Even if these transactions did not breach Santander’s ESG [environmental, social, and governance] policy, they highlight Santander’s lack of ambition,” he said, adding that the exclusions for some unconventional oil and gas projects are “highly insufficient.”

Ulf Erlandsson, CEO of the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute think tank, said Santander’s lending operations looked like a “nominal breach” of its policies and had cost the bank some credibility.

He added that the bank’s practices were “largely in conjunction with a number of other European institutions with far-reaching sustainability commitments” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he said has “shifted the table on energy in Europe.”

Problematic projects

LNG development on the Gulf Coast was spurred by the country’s fracking boom in the mid-2000s, but operations have ramped up particularly again in the wake of the Russian invasion, with the U.S. moving to present itself as an alternative global source of gas. There are five terminals in operation, four more being built, and another seven that have been green-lit.

But the climate consequences are huge, and in January, Joe Biden paused the approval of any new projects.

As well as encouraging the expansion of fracking activity — a hugely polluting process that contributes to global heating — the LNG facilities that Santander has helped finance have also caused issues more locally.

The Calcasieu Pass LNG project in Louisiana, for instance, which raised a $1 billion bond with banks including Santander last year, has been linked to near-constant gas flaring, excessive emissions, and the risks of explosion. Venture Global LNG, which owns the plant, has said it is not fully operational due to faulty power equipment.

Roishetta Ozane, who lives inland from Calcasieu Pass and is Gulf fossil finance coordinator for Texas Campaign for the Environment, told TBIJ that doctors said local air and water pollution had caused an increase in her 18-year-old epileptic son’s seizures.

“He goes fishing but he can’t eat the fish,” she said. “Because I’m afraid if he gets too much mercury in his system, too much of the other pollution in the water, that is going to further exacerbate his seizures.”

Last year, Santander helped lead on a $7.8 billion finance package for the Plaquemines LNG project in Louisiana, which is poised to become one of the largest fracked gas export terminals in the U.S.

The terminal has already drawn millions of gallons of water away from the local municipal supply. Total greenhouse gas emissions from burning fracked gas as a result of expanding the terminal would be equivalent to 42 coal plants, according to an analysis by the environmental group Sierra Club.

Santander was also part of a banking collective that lent $7 billion to Port Arthur LNG, a terminal being built in southeast Texas. Bigger still was the $12 billion package for the Rio Grande terminal near Texas’ border with Mexico, which Santander was also involved in. That project is served by pipelines that pass close to Garcia Pasture, the ancestral land of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe, which challenged the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for not adequately measuring the LNG plant’s environmental impacts.

Santander told TBIJ it is “fully committed to supporting a fair and secure green transition.” It added: “We also set clear emissions reduction targets across a range of high-emitting sectors.”

Sempra Infrastructure, the company behind Port Arthur, told TBIJ it was committed to providing “secure, reliable energy” and was exploring options to lower the carbon intensity of its LNG. It said that LNG “will continue to play a key role in both developed and emerging markets worldwide.”

TBIJ made several attempts to contact Venture Global, the owner of the Calcasieu Pass and Plaquemines projects, and Next Decade, which owns Rio Grande LNG, but the companies had not responded by the time of publication.

Aubineau said Santander and commercial banks in general should not only exclude companies developing new oil and gas exploration and production from their financing policies, but the companies developing infrastructure that supports increased production too.

Erlandsson said: “With controversy also domestically on U.S. LNG terminals, to the degree that even the Biden administration has put a pause of further LNG terminal expansion, arguments that this type of financing generates material adverse effects cannot be brushed off.”

For Ozane and her community, the banks financing the LNG buildout on the Gulf Coast are deliberately putting profits over people: “While communities of color and low-income communities are fighting for our lives on the front line of climate change, these banks continue to fund the fossil fuel industries. They continue to target low-income, low-wealth Black, Indigenous, and other people of color communities, treating us like collateral damage to corporate profiteering.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Santander has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in LNG buildout in the Gulf on Mar 21, 2024.

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