Trump's EPA to maintain Obama-era coal plant curbs, with a twist www.mining.com

The Trump administration is poised to propose maintaining Obama-era restrictions on mercury pollution from power plants, responding to opposition from electric utilities that have already spent billions of dollars to meet the requirements.

At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency is set to propose changes that may make it harder to toughen mercury emissions standards in the future by disavowing the legal justification for the regulation and altering the way its health benefits are measured. The proposal reflects a balancing act for the Trump administration, which has struggled to address a rule loathed by coal producers

The proposal reflects a balancing act for the Trump administration, which has struggled to address a rule loathed by coal producers, viewed warily by EPA officials who object to how it was justified and yet has already been complied with by power companies.

“We’ve been in compliance for a number of years now, the equipment is operating and it is effective. We really see no reason at all to roll back the requirements," said John McManus, senior vice president of environmental services at American Electric Power Company Inc. “Retired plants aren’t coming back, and we see no reason to turn back the controls that are running on our existing plants.”

The 2012 rule prompted a wave of coal-fired power plant closures and drew the ire of a powerful foe: coal magnate Robert E. Murray, who has spent years crusading against the regulation in court. His coal company, Murray Energy Corp., argues its domestic sales have suffered as a result of the standards.

But power companies such as Duke Energy Corp. have implored the EPA and White House to leave the mercury standards intact. Utilities have already spent some $18 billion installing required technology to fulfill the requirements and satisfy April 2015 compliance deadlines that have long since passed, industry trade groups told the EPA this summer.

For instance, AEP has invested nearly $8.8 billion on environmental equipment retrofits at its coal-fired power plants since 2000, with much of that equipment contributing to its compliance with the mercury rule. The utility-owner has retired 7,200 megawatts of coal-fired generation from 2011 through 2016 as part of its effort to meet the more stringent mercury rules. Mercury emissions from its plants have dropped 95 percent since 2001.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest U.S. source of mercury, a metal that is converted in soil and water into a neurotoxin that can lower IQ, cause motor function deficits, damage the nervous system and lead to more heart attacks.

“More mercury in the air means more mercury in the water, which means more mercury in the fish, which means more mercury in people who eat the fish,” said Janet McCabe, an acting assistant administrator of the EPA’s air office in the Obama administration. “That is especially problematic for young children, pregnant women and the babies they are carrying.” The EPA is set to propose keeping the mercury limits in place while simultaneously withdrawing an assertion the requirements are “appropriate and necessary”

The EPA is set to propose keeping the mercury limits in place while simultaneously withdrawing an assertion the requirements are “appropriate and necessary” — a legal benchmark under the Clean Air Act.

The change would arm the rule’s opponents with ammunition for another lawsuit challenging the mercury standards in an effort to win a court-ordered repeal. It’s not clear any such litigation would prevail; a 2008 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on another mercury rule sets a high bar.

Although the EPA is ensnared by the partial government shutdown, it has enough leftover funding to continue operating, at least this week. The agency is expected to issue the proposal as soon as Wednesday.

The EPA also is set to recalculate the cost and benefits of the mercury rule in a way that dramatically shrinks its estimated potential health gains — a change that could prevent the EPA from making the mercury pollution requirements more stringent in the future.

At issue are the broad health benefits that spring from regulations — not just those that directly flow from reducing a pollutant explicitly targeted by individual rules. In the case of the mercury rule, for example, the technology utilities employed to curtail mercury emissions also pared the amount of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide belched out of their power plants, which the EPA said would reduce asthma attacks, heart attacks and premature deaths.

Those “co-benefits” of the mercury rule were an essential figure in the Obama administration’s calculation of the its ultimate price tag. Although the EPA estimated it would cost industry $9.6 billion annually to install necessary technology, it said health benefits from reducing mercury and other non-targeted pollutants were worth nearly 10 times more.

As much as 89 percent of the 2012 rule’s health benefits came from reducing fine particulate matter — beyond the toxic air pollutants the measure actually targeted, according to the EPA.

Now, under President Donald Trump, the EPA is set to assert that because it is leaning on its Clean Air Act authority to regulate hazardous air pollutants, it is improper to consider the health benefits of paring other pollution.

The EPA may argue that pollutants regulated under other programs can’t be used to “justify a regulation that is only supposed to be about hazardous air pollutants,” said Jeff Holmstead, an assistant EPA administrator under former President George W. Bush.

By disregarding co-benefits, the new proposal is set to conclude that the rule’s costs exceed its benefits. Environmentalists say the change could preclude the agency from counting these benefits to justify the cost of toughening requirements in the future.

The Trump administration approach would limit “the EPA’s ability to recognize the full range of benefits that result from pollution control,” said Joe Goffman, a former senior counsel in agency’s air office. The result is “to limit the reach of the Clean Air Act as a tool for regulating air pollution and protecting public health.”

The mercury standards have been the subject of litigation for years. After they were imposed in 2012, the coal industry sued, ultimately forcing the EPA to revisit its conclusions. The Obama administration reinstated the regulation in 2016 and Murray Energy sued to block it, but a federal appeals court delayed the case so the Trump administration could reconsider the rule.

Koreas hold groundbreaking ceremony for railway project www,apnews.com

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean officials attended a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for an aspirational project to modernize North Korean railways and roads and connect them with the South.

The ceremony at the North Korean border town of Kaesong came weeks after the Koreas conducted a joint survey on the northern railway sections they hope to someday link with the South.

The ambitious project is among a variety of peace gestures agreed between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in as they push ahead with engagement amid a stalemate in larger nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.

But beyond on-site reviews and ceremonies, the Koreas cannot move the project much further along without the removal of U.S.-led sanctions against the North.

During his three summits with Moon and a meeting with President Donald Trump in June, Kim signed vague statements pledging a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula without describing how and when it would occur. But followup nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled for months over the sequencing of the denuclearization that Washington wants and the removal of international sanctions desired by Pyongyang.

About 100 South Koreans, including government officials and lawmakers, attended the ceremony. They were greeted by North Korean officials including Ri Son Gwon, who heads an agency dealing with inter-Korean affairs. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and officials from China, Russia and Mongolia also attended the ceremony, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

The Seoul government plans to conduct further surveys on North Korean railways and roads before drawing up a detailed blueprint for the project. Actual construction will proceed depending on the progress in the North’s denuclearization and the state of sanctions against the country, the ministry said.

“We plan to hold detailed negotiations with the North to coordinate on the specific levels we want to achieve in the modernization of railways and roads and how to carry out the project,” said Eugene Lee, the ministry’s spokeswoman.

Even if the North takes concrete steps toward denuclearization and gains sanctions relief, some experts say updating North Korean rail networks and trains, which creak slowly along the rails that were first built in the early 20th century, could take decades and massive investment.

Seoul said it received an exemption to sanctions from the U.N. Security Council to proceed with Wednesday’s ceremony as it involved the usage of South Korean transport vehicles and goods. The Koreas’ joint survey of North Korean railways in November, which also required U.N. approval, marked the first time a South Korean train traveled on North Korean tracks.

The Koreas in December 2007 began freight services between South Korea’s Munsan Station in Paju and the North’s Panmun Station to support operations at a now-shuttered joint factory park in Kaesong. The South used the trains to move construction materials north, while clothing and shoes made at the factory park were sent south. The line was cut in November 2008 due to political tensions over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

The Kaesong factory park was shut down under the South’s previous conservative government in February 2016 following a North Korean nuclear test and long-range rocket launch.

You can now own Putin’s limo! Russia to begin mass producing Aurus cars www.rt.com

Mass production of Russia’s new Aurus limousine, developed for the presidential motorcade, will begin in the eastern region of Tatarstan. The first vehicles will roll off the production line in 2020.
The project will be implemented at the production facilities of Russia's automobile company Sollers in the special economic zone of Alabuga, Tatarstan Republic, according to the Trade Minister Denis Manturov.

Mongolia's Tax Collectors are the Real Winner in National Lotto www.bloomberg.com

Mongolia’s effort to get its citizens to pay taxes by enrolling them in a lottery is delivering a big payout -- for the government.

Seismic activity in UB increases by 200! www.news.mn

Seismic activity is relatively low in and around the Mongolian capital as compared to the western parts of the country. This year, a total of 873 mini-quakes occurred in Ulaanbaatar – mostly too small to be felt – however, this represents an increase of 200 on 2017. The epicentres have been in Emeelt, Khustai and Avdar Mountain. Furthermore, seismic activity has been increasing in Mungunmorit and Dzuunkharaa, a town in the Selenge province.

Mongolia expels 531 foreign nationals www.news.mn

A total of 531 foreign nationals from 29 countries have been expelled from Mongolia due to illegal stay or violating visa regulations. Most of them were Chinese (972), North Korean (42) followed by Americans (15), Russians (14), Australians (10) and Germans (8).

600,000 tons of enhanced fuel to be produced by September 2019 www.zgm.mn

Cabinet held an extended irregular meeting last Friday to review the actions on air pollution reduction and made relevant decisions, including the transfer of State ownership stakes of Tavan Tolgoi Fuel LLC, which is producing enhanced fuel as raw coal consumption will be banned next year.

At the meeting, the Cabinet decided to transfer the stakes of Tavan Tolgoi Fuel LLC to be held by the State to Ministry of Mining and Heavy Industry and Ministry of Energy. Accordingly, the related ministers are now responsible for the annual production of 600,000 tons of enhanced fuel, monitoring the supply and reporting the results to the Cabinet.

Ministers were also ordered to install advanced technology and equipment of deep processing coal in order to create reserves and manufacturing international-standard enhanced fuel. A study determined the annual consumption of enhanced fuel in Ulaanbaatar city to be 600,000 tons. Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC will be responsible for financing the necessary funds under a strict monitoring of law enforcement in a publicly transparent manner.

Tavan Tolgoi Fuel LLC currently has 8,099 tons of enhanced fuel reserves and is expected to manufacture 600,000 tons by September 15, 2019.

As a pilot run, the early production was sold to 1,876 households of 28th khoroo of Sukhbaatar district, conducting several surveys. The study found that the product has already created demand as users had positive feedback for the fuel.

Additionally, the Cabinet further reviewed other actions on air pollution reduction. As exempted from customs duty, over 2,300 air purifiers and energy-efficient heaters were imported this year. A total of 862 air purifiers were installed at 142 medical centers, district hospitals and children’s cabinets of maternity hospitals under the Ulaanbaatar Clean Air Project, as well as another 5,200 air purifiers from the State Budget. As a result, PM 2.5 components in the air reduced by 13-29 percent in hospitals.

According to officials, 45 stoves and 68 boilers were dismantled in the last one year, and by connecting 10 stoves to district heating network, raw coal consumption was reduced by 70,000 tons, PM2.5 emission by 510 tons and sulfur emission by 560 tons.

Enhanced fuel has already created demand as users had positive feedback in early production
Report shows that MNT 8.3 billion was spent on night-time electricity discounts for 118,000 households of ger districts and about 15 percent of total households in ger districts have shifted to electrical heating appliances within the last one year. Furthermore, technical capacity of providing 4 kWt electrical heating appliances to 421,000 households have been completed so far.

Six entities have been selected to supply 80,000 tons of enhanced fuel to over 26,000 households in Songino khairkhan district. This is estimated to cut raw coal consumption by 150,000 tons and PM2.5 emission by 150 tons.

Around 65,000 children and 117,000 children of target group were included for influenza vaccinations and necessary changes were made to student holiday schedules.

The Cabinet also informed that MNT 1 billion worth financial support was granted to seven provinces with the highest pollution, which allowed them to prepare Air Pollution Reduction Program and set the areas in need for air quality improvement.

Japan govt. approves steps for foreign workers www.nhk.or.jp

The Japanese government has approved a set of policy measures to make it easier for foreigners to live and work in Japan.

SouthGobi announces update on status of CIC Convertible Debenture www.southgobi.com

This announcement is made by SouthGobi Resources Ltd. (the “Company”) pursuant to Rule 13.09(2)(a) of the Rules Governing the Listing of Securities on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Inside Information Provisions under Part XIVA of the Securities and Futures Ordinance (Chapter 571 of the Laws of Hong Kong).
The Company is in default under the convertible debenture between China Investment Corporation (“CIC”) and the Company signed in November 2009 (the “Convertible
Debenture”) as a result of the Company having now been suspended from trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”), halted from trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, for a period of more than 5 trading days since December 17, 2018. Trading on the TSX will
remain suspended until clarification regarding the business and affairs of the Company is announced and trading on the SEHK will remain halted pending the publication of an insider information announcement.
Pursuant to the terms of the Convertible Debenture, CIC may, at its discretion, provide notice to the Company and declare all principal, interest and other amounts owing under the Convertible Debenture immediately due and payable, and take steps to enforce payment
thereof, which would have a material adverse effect on the business and operations of the Company and the value of the Company’s common shares could be materially and negatively affected.
- 1 -
* For identification purposes only
The Company and CIC are having active and close discussion on the issues related to the
Convertible Debenture and the deferral agreement executed on June 12, 2017. As of today,
the Company has not received any such notice from CIC to demand any payments nor
declare any outstanding balances immediately due and payable, as a result of the above
mentioned trading suspension and trading halt and other event(s) of default.
The Company will provide further updates of the status of this matter as appropriate.

South Korea invited officials from China, Russia and Mongolia to attend the commencement ceremony of inter-Korean railway docking www.qknews.com

Overseas Network Dec. 24 - Dec. 26, the commencement ceremony of the inter-Korean railway and highway docking project will be held at Banmen Station in Kaesong, Korea. According to Yonhap News Agency on the 24th, South Koreas Unification Ministry said the ceremony was attended by eight officials from China, Russia, Mongolia and the United Nations, in addition to Zhao Mingjun, Minister of Unification, Kim Hyun-mei, Minister of Land and Transport, and Li Shanquan, Chairman of the Peaceful Reunification Commission of the Korean Motherland. Reported that the above eight overseas people attended the ceremony at the invitation of the Korean side.