From: Montana Energy Review
By Jennifer Owen
LARRY MAYER/Gazette Staff
The Obama Administration is implementing a change to federal rulemakings, establishing a higher “social cost of carbon” metric, meaning that new regulations that reduce carbon emissions have a better cost-benefit profile. The push to reduce carbon emissions could have negative effects on Montana’s conventional energy industry, including Colstrip power plants 1, 2, 3, 4, & Westmoreland coal mines near Colstrip, Montana.
From: RegWatch/The Hill’s Regulation Blog
By Julian Hattem
The oil and gas lobby is threatening to sue the Obama administration if environmental regulators do not release a biofuel regulation by the end of November.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) on Thursday sent a letter notifying the Environmental Protection Agency that it should prepare for a lawsuit if the final 2014 renewable fuel standard is not released on time.
The fuel standard calls for refiners to mix increasing amounts of biofuel in with conventional gasoline.
From: Bloomberg
By Anna Edney
The $1.5 billion U.S. electronic-cigarette industry has tripled sales this year with the help of TV ads, Nascar sponsorships and product giveaways. Government regulation may now threaten those marketing tactics.
The Food and Drug Administration is set to decide this month whether to lump e-cigarettes in with conventional smokes as part of its oversight of the $90 billion U.S. tobacco market. Such a step would set the stage for greater restrictions on production, advertising, flavorings and online sales.
From: Bloomberg Government
Below are data and analyses from Bloomberg Government analysts about the business impact of the partial government shutdown.
The federal shutdown has put a number of forthcoming EPA rules on hold. The 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard requirements — which are technically due by Nov. 30 — are probably the most time-sensitive. EPA has promised to consider the “blend wall” and other constraints in its 2014 rulemaking, so industry is eagerly awaiting the agency’s proposal. Compliance in 2014 is uncertain unless the total target is significantly lowered.
From: The Heartland Institute
Taylor Smith
The Obama administration has quietly increased the federal government’s estimated social costs for carbon emissions, which are a major factor in federal government decisions regarding land development, business permits, energy production, carbon dioxide restrictions, and a host of other applications. But glaring flaws in the science and economic assumptions behind the new estimate suggest it is both dubious and wasteful.
The White House Interagency Working Group produced a technical document providing a new formula for how the federal government calculates the asserted social costs of carbon dioxide emissions. According to the document, the new formula will “allow agencies to incorporate the social benefits of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in cost-benefit analyses of regulatory actions that impact cumulative global emissions.”
Editor’s Note: The EPA study is, of course, subject to the reuqirements of the Data Quality Act.
From: Bloomberg/BNA
By Amena H. Saiyid
Federal regulators may be able to assert Clean Water Act jurisdiction over more waters and wetlands than are now protected on the basis of a draft scientific study that links all streams and certain wetlands with larger, downstream navigable waters, attorneys and policy analysts say.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s draft study finds that all tributary streams, including perennial and the previously unprotected intermittent and ephemeral streams, are physically, chemically and biologically connected to downstream rivers.
From: PorkNetwork
[Pork Network] Editor’s Note: Gary H. Baise is an Illinois farmer and trial attorney at the law firm Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC, specializing in agricultural and environmental issues in state and federal court. He also serves as outside General Counsel for the U.S. Grains Council, Agricultural Retailers Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Sorghum Producers and counsel to the American Soybean Association.In the Legal Outlook blog, Baise will shed light on legal issues facing agriculture. Additionally, he will include his impressions on what these issues mean to producers.
From: Mother Jones
By Tim Murphy
Update: The midnight deadline came and went without a deal from House Republicans and Senate Democrats (except for one small bill, on military pay). Welcome to the Shutdown.
The government will shut down at midnight unless President Obama and Congress can agree on a temporary resolution to continue funding federal agencies. (Spoiler: They probably won’t.)
Here’s a quick guide to who and what will be most affected:
From: HuffPost Politics
Matt Sledge
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday released its rules for a recently approved reduction in prison phone call rates.
Advocates had been holding their breath awaiting the official FCC order since the agency voted on Aug. 9 to create rate caps on the eye-popping fees third-party phone companies charge inmates to call families and friends.
The rules will now head to the White House Office of Management and Budget and will go into effect 90 days after OMB publishes them in the Federal Register — but only if the prison phone companies are unable to stop them first.
From: RegBlog
Silki Patel
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set its eyes on the fast-growing mobile health app market, estimated to reach $26 billion by 2017.
A recent FDA action has reignited uncertainty over the agency’s treatment of mobile health apps. Earlier this year, the FDA sent a letter to a firm called Biosense, questioning the company’s lack of federal regulatory clearance for uChek Urine analyzer, a kit that allows consumers to use their cell phone cameras to read color differences on test strips designed to detect unhealthy levels of protein and other substances in urine.