Preview Newsletter
PM 11/28/2018
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump’s G-20 Dance Card
Nov 26, 2018 | Politico - Morning Trade
By Adam Behsudi
...A coalition of nearly 150 business groups urged Trump on Tuesday to use his meeting with Xi to reach a deal that would end the administration’s tariffs and halt plans to increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on Jan. 1... -
(ACC Mentioned) 48th Auto-Plastics Competition Highlights Changing Industry
Nov 28, 2018 | Composites World
By Peggy Malnati
On November 7, a global audience of nearly 1,000 gathered for the Society of Plastics Engineers’ (SPE, Bethel, CT, US) 48th-annual Automotive Innovation Awards gala to learn this year’s category and Grand Award winners. -
(ACC Mentioned) These Seattleites Are Working Hard Not to Trash the Planet
Nov 28, 2018 | Seattle Magazine
By Maria Dolan
Though some of that stuff reminded her of home, she eventually felt that it got in the way. She started thinking about how to simplify her life and read a book on the topic. “It talked about how, in clearing your physical space, you clear your mind,” she says. -
‘Bring Me Tariffs’—How Trump and Xi Drove Their Countries to the Brink of a Trade War
Nov 28, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Bob Davis and Lingling Wei
On Sept. 21, Chinese President Xi Jinping convened an emergency meeting of two dozen top officials. The day before, the U.S. had taken Beijing by surprise by imposing sanctions on a research unit of the Chinese military, shortly after announcing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports. -
Canada Proposes Pollution Prevention Plan for Triclosan
Nov 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
Canada has released a proposed notice to require the development of pollution prevention plans for triclosan, following the substance’s addition to the country’s toxic substances list earlier this year. -
Canada Finds Five 'Poly(Bios)' Substances Not Harmful in Final Assessment
Nov 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A Canadian government screening assessment of five "poly(bios)" substances for their potential for harm to humans and the environment has determined that they do not meet the toxicity criteria set out in section 64 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa). -
Cefic Prepares Mid-Century Chemicals Industry Strategy
Nov 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Findings from a recently published report will serve as recommendations on the future of the European chemicals industry for the next European Parliament and Commission, Cefic has said. -
Groups Detail State Rule Gaps Amid Methane Rollback
Nov 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Wilderness Society are highlighting the regulatory gaps in existing state oil and gas methane rules amid the Trump administration's repeal of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule limiting methane waste on federal lands... -
Offshore Energy Essential for US National Security, Economic Prosperity
Nov 28, 2018 | Real Clear Energy
By Jim Webb & Jim Nicholson
It is self-evident that improved living standards around the world and a growing global economy will only continue with increased access to energy, of all sorts. -
Shale Boom Raises Specter of Gulf Coast Oil Terminal Glut
Nov 28, 2018 | Bloomberg (In Real Clear Energy)
By Catherine Ngai
The race to export U.S. shale oil overseas is about to get fierce, with at least nine proposed terminals angling for a piece of a very limited pie. -
Two Pipelines in Pennsylvania, Ohio Amass More Than 800 Violations: Report
Nov 28, 2018 | The Hill -E2 Wire
By Michael Burke
Two pipelines being built across Pennsylvania and Ohio by Energy Transfer and its Sunoco subsidiary have amassed more than 800 state and federal permit violations, a Reuters analysis published Wednesday revealed. -
N.D. Regulators Approve Expansion of Roosevelt Plant
Nov 28, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
North Dakota regulators have approved the $150 million expansion of the Roosevelt Gas Plant in McKenzie County, though they ordered Houston-based Kinder Morgan to minimize noise and light pollution for neighboring landowners. -
Ewire: Bipartisan House Group Floats Carbon Tax Bill
Nov 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
Five House lawmakers from both parties are floating a carbon tax measure that is intended to advance discussion about carbon pricing in the next Congress and potentially shape any policy that might be enacted under a more favorable political environment. -
Judge Accuses EPA of 'Whistling past the Graveyard' on Ozone
Nov 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
At least one federal judge appeared highly skeptical today of EPA's refusal to expand a multistate program aimed at slashing regional ozone. -
EPA Chief Criticizes Climate Report over ‘Worst-Case Scenario’
Nov 28, 2018 | The Hill -E2 Wire
By Michael Burke
Two pipelines being built across Pennsylvania and Ohio by Energy Transfer and its Sunoco subsidiary have amassed more than 800 state and federal permit violations, a Reuters analysis published Wednesday revealed. -
The Energy 202: Trump Officials Mount Full-Court Press Against Their Own Climate Report
Nov 28, 2018 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
The White House press secretary said it was "not based on facts." -
Trump Ties Skepticism to 'Intelligence'
Nov 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
President Trump yesterday in an interview with The Washington Post offered what's being cast as a confusing explanation for his skepticism of a federal climate report warning of dire consequences.
Industry and Association News -
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
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Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation and Infrastructure News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump’s G-20 Dance Card
Nov 26, 2018 | Politico - Morning Trade
By Adam Behsudi
With help from Sabrina Rodriguez, Jakob Hanke and Megan Cassella
Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Trade is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Trade subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
QUICK FIX: President Donald Trump will arrive in Buenos Aires to a busy schedule of meetings with at least eight world leaders, and trade could be a topic of discussion with most. European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström is worried that a quick U.S.-China deal could put the EU at a disadvantage. U.S. industry groups’ comments on a trade deal with Japan preview a tough time for Tokyo when the talks focus on agriculture and automobiles. Start here:
TRUMP’S G-20 DANCE CARD: All eyes might be on Trump’s dinner meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but the U.S. leader has other high-profile meetings that could have trade consequences.
Trump is also scheduled to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said Trump’s meeting with Abe would also include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The meetings with Abe and Merkel could prove critical as Trump looks toward negotiations with Japan and the European Union. The two economies are living under the threat of U.S. tariffs on imports of automobiles and auto parts.
Deal or no deal with China: White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said Tuesday that Trump sees a “good possibility” that a deal with China can be reached. But issues with intellectual property, forced technology transfers, ownership issues and significant tariff and non-tariff barriers “must be solved,” he said, adding that Trump is “perfectly happy to stand on his tariff policies.”
While Kudlow was hopeful for a deal in one breath, in the other he downplayed the impact of more tariffs if the meeting ended with no breakthrough. “It’s really just a fraction of our economy,” he said.
“I’m not suggesting there aren’t winner and losers in that game,” he said. “It’s a complicated game but on the other hand, I think we are in far better shape to weather this than the Chinese are.”
Doug Palmer and Andrew Restuccia have more here.
IT'S WEDNESDAY, NOV. 28! Welcome to Morning Trade, where your host is kind of rooting for this otter and wishes more trade stories could have ledes like this one. Got any news to share? Buenos Aires bound? Let me know: abehsudi@politico.com or @abehsudi.
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** A message from Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy: As adversaries flood the world with cheap uranium, free market uranium mining is declining. Whenever mines close in the U.S. or allied countries, our dependence deepens on China and Russia. We urge the President to implement remedies that will support domestic uranium mining and preserve U.S. national security. Learn more. **
MALMSTRÖM WARY OF U.S.-CHINA DEAL: Malmström said a potential trade truce between the U.S. and China could be bad news — especially if Beijing appeases Trump by buying more from America and less from Europe, and by granting U.S. companies privileged market access.
"Of course that would be bad for the EU," Malmström said at event in Brussels on Tuesday. “They will have to negotiate some way forward. And we might not like those results.”
Regulatory work still happening: Malmström also talked up regulatory cooperation with the U.S., which is laying the groundwork for eventual trade negotiations next year. There are “so many new standards waiting to be implemented,” she said, adding that if Washington were to tackle this implementation jointly with the EU, “we would have global EU-U.S. standards and others would have to follow.”
“That is not very sexy, that’s not very easy to summarize in a tweet, but it’s very important to facilitate trade and it means a lot for our industries on both sides,” she said.
Trade talks in holding pattern: A scoping exercise for the trade deal — which lays the groundwork and determines the extent of future trade talks — has not started yet. “We haven’t started any scoping, we haven’t started any negotiations, there is no mandate,” Malmström said, adding that the bloc offered to let Washington start the process. However, Congress hasn’t issued the authorization needed for the Trump administration to move ahead yet, she said.
Speaking about the rising challenges facing free and open trade today, she said: “Dealing with the American administration is of course a challenge for the whole world because it is slightly unpredictable, and it’s governed by tweets. But it’s something we have to do.”
FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUPS PRESS FOR MARKET ACCESS IN CHINA: Ahead of Trump’s sit-down with Xi, leading financial services industry groups are pressing the administration to push for full market access in China not just for U.S. companies, but for all non-Chinese companies operating in the country.
In a letter sent this week to USTR, the National Economic Council and Treasury Department, a dozen groups representing the Engage China Coalition are urging changes that would level the playing field for joint ventures and equalize the treatment of foreign insurers seeking licenses, among other demands.
“There is a historic opportunity here and we believe the Trump administration has the potential and ability to deliver on it,” groups including the American Bankers Association and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association wrote.
KUSHNER TO RECEIVE TOP MEXICO AWARD FOR USMCA WORK: White House senior adviser Jared Kushner will receive the highest honor Mexico can bestow on foreigners for his work in renegotiating NAFTA, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is expected to present Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, with the Order of the Aztec Eagle at the G-20 summit, Mexican newspaper Reforma first reported. More here.
A U.S.-JAPAN WISHLIST: Industry, agriculture and advocacy groups have laid out what they want to see in a U.S.-Japan trade deal. The talks will be a chance for the U.S. to revisit some of the more contentious issues in Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, with autos and agriculture on the top of the list.
Where’s the beef (and pork)? U.S. meat producers will push hard for rapid elimination of tariffs to catch up with competitors that already have preferential trade through the CPTPP and a Japan-EU trade deal. The National Pork Producers Council said it has seen its market share erode most notably to Spain and Canada. The NPPC, along with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and U.S. Meat Export Federation, are asking that any tariff cuts be synchronized with the scheduled tariff reductions in the EU and CPTPP deals.
If Japan’s trade deals with the EU and CPTPP are implemented by April 1, 2019, the USMEF estimates that U.S. beef exports could lose $551 million annually by the fifth year those deals are in force. By year 10, the losses could reach $1.2 billion annually.
Don’t prejudge the agriculture outcome: The National Milk Producers Federation expressed disappointment that a joint U.S.-Japan statementestablishing the talks “appears to suggest a ceiling on the level of agricultural ambition before the talks have even begun.” The industry group said it wants an outcome better than the CPTPP and the Japan-EU deals. That includes a similar request to expedite tariff cuts to avoid any disadvantage if those deals are implemented soon.
Auto imbalance: Tokyo can expect to get squeezed on autos. The two countries agreed to broad language in the joint statement that requires any outcome on autos be “designed to increase production and jobs in the United States.” The United Autoworkers demand a floating quota that would restrict Japanese imports at a rate at or below the previous quarter with anything above that subject to tariffs under the Section 232 action being threatened. The UAW also wants to tie any U.S. auto tariff reductions to an increase in U.S. exports to Japan. It also seeks to establish a $24 per hour minimum wage standard in rules of origin for final assembly and major components like engines and transmissions.
The American Automotive Policy Council, the trade lobbying arm of the Detroit Three, has yet to detail its demands but a statement on the talks last month said the deal should ensure the acceptance of U.S. safety standards and enforceable provisions to stop currency manipulation.
BUSINESS GROUPS WANT RESOLUTION IN TRADE WAR WITH CHINA: A coalition of nearly 150 business groups urged Trump on Tuesday to use his meeting with Xi to reach a deal that would end the administration’s tariffs and halt plans to increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods on Jan. 1. In a letter to Trump, the trade groups — which include the American Chemistry Council, National Retail Federation and National Foreign Trade Council — asked the president to also avoid slapping tariffs on another $267 billion worth of Chinese goods.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-trade/2018/11/28/trumps-g-20-dance-card-432818
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(ACC Mentioned) 48th Auto-Plastics Competition Highlights Changing Industry
Nov 28, 2018 | Composites World
By Peggy Malnati
On November 7, a global audience of nearly 1,000 gathered for the Society of Plastics Engineers’ (SPE, Bethel, CT, US) 48th-annual Automotive Innovation Awards gala to learn this year’s category and Grand Award winners.
When it started in 1970, the competition — organized by the Automotive Division of SPE — was intended to draw automaker attention to plastics as an underutilized material in the automotive industry. At the time, most polymeric content on cars was restricted to ashtrays, buttons, knobs, rubber mats, seals and tires. To borrow a tagline from that era, “We’ve come a long way, baby.”
Today, the American Chemistry Council (Washington, DC, US) reports that polymeric materials make up 50% of the volume of new passenger vehicles but only 10% of their weight. And you’d better believe that content is increasing as we draw closer to 2025 fuel efficiency mandates in North America and tailpipe emissions mandates in much of Europe and Asia.
The trends changing how automotive plastics and composites are used have been spelled out pretty accurately in SPE’s annual parts competition over the last half-century and this year’s contest was no exception, which is why it’s so interesting to participate as a judge. For example, one of the long-standing competition rules is that nominations must be used on vehicles commercially available for purchase (or in use to produce commercial parts) by November 1st of the year the nomination is submitted — although they also can be submitted after start of production (SOP). Given the rapid growth in additive manufacturing and 3D printing technologies, and the increasing breadth of materials available, it was not surprising to see that organizers added a new category for this year’s competition for Additive Manufacturing. Eight strong nominations were entered, including lighter, more ergonomic lift assists, assembly alignment fixtures, and B-side body tools for final assembly that replaced much heavier (and often more metal-centric) traditional tools that were costlier and took far longer to produce. Carbon fiber-reinforced polyamide 12 (CF-PA12) featured prominently in several cases. Other applications included additively manufactured inserts for injection molding tools that replaced the porous, sintered metal-matrix composite, Porcerax (International Mold Steel Inc., Florence, KY, US), which reportedly is more sensitive to mold release and mold-cleaning products and doesn’t last as long. Still another application was an OEM replacement part for an older model vehicle whose original tooling had been misplaced. For the small number of parts needed each year, 3D printing was far more cost-effective than producing new injection molding tools. In fact, that application was reportedly the auto industry’s first commercial use of CLIP technology from Carbon Inc. (Redwood City, CA, US) to produce thermoset parts — in this case in epoxy.
Another sign of the times is that a front-mounted composite millimeter-wave radar bracket with breakaway functionality for pedestrian impact protection in 33% glass-reinforced PA 6/6 (GR-PA66) was a Safety category finalist. In recent years there have been more and more nominations with clever ways to incorporate forward- and rear-projecting cameras and various sensors in bumper fascia, rear fins, front grilles, and even in a rear taillight assembly. As autonomous vehicles move out of testing and begin entering roadways in quantities, expect to see more nominations like these.
The Environmental category also had a strong showing this year. Judges had to choose among applications that used up 11.9-million ft2/1.1-million m2 of old carpet backing plus 26,250 lb/11,907 kg of recycled tire rubber versus several 100% post-industrial recyclate (PIR) applications — one of which, remarkably, was a Class A exterior part — and a third that combined PIR automotive scrap plus post-consumer recyclate (PCR) from food packaging, as well as the industry’s first use of a combination of cellulose fiber (from sustainable forestry) plus long-glass fiber polypropylene (LGF-PP). In every case, weight and costs were saved, greenhouse-gas emissions reduced, and presumably more positive lifecycle analyses yielded.
https://www.compositesworld.com/news/48th-auto-plastics-competition-highlights-changing-industry
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(ACC Mentioned) These Seattleites Are Working Hard Not to Trash the Planet
Nov 28, 2018 | Seattle Magazine
By Maria Dolan
The small, bright kitchen in the Green Lake house that Stephanie Wall shares with her husband and toddler is neat as a pin. This might be because she knew a reporter was coming by, but it’s also because she’s embraced a lifestyle that consciously avoids accumulation, particularly of items that can’t be reused, recycled or composted.
Her minimalism is partly due to her family background. “I had a close relative who I always thought of as an amateur hoarder,” she says. Seeing that way of life, she and one of her cousins used to talk about how they didn’t want to accumulate too much stuff when they grew up.
Yet, when she moved to Seattle from Minnesota in 2003 for college, Wall found herself dragging more than she needed across the country, cramming it into her dorm room and even a storage room. She had a bag of extra shoes she never wore and a collection of old magazines she didn’t even look at. “My friends would kind of give me grief,” she says.
Though some of that stuff reminded her of home, she eventually felt that it got in the way. She started thinking about how to simplify her life and read a book on the topic. “It talked about how, in clearing your physical space, you clear your mind,” she says. Then, in 2010, she stumbled upon a blog that changed her life.
“Bea Johnson...I think they call her the priestess of zero waste,” says Wall of the author of the Zero Waste Home blog.
“Zero waste” is the name of a lifestyle movement and philosophy devoted to reducing personal consumption and generating less trash. Proponents frequently refer to Johnson as their inspiration. She’s a French woman transplanted to Marin County, California, who popped on the scene in an exquisitely stylish Sunset magazine spread about a decade ago. The article made finding ways to avoid generating trash look even more chic than shopping. In addition to her popular blog, Johnson wrote a very successful 2013 book of the same title, Zero Waste Home.
If Johnson has a symbol, it would be a glass jar. Such jars serve a variety of purposes. There’s the pint-size glass “landfill” jar of garbage her family has acquired that can’t be composted or recycled. Since 2008, they have managed to bring so little waste into their home that they usually only need to fill one jar per year, which contains objects like produce stickers, an empty pen refill and a broken hair tie.
There are also the glass jars that the zero-waste priestess fills with food and other products from bulk bins and the grocery deli (rather than buying packaged items). She also uses them for storage in her cupboards. These are the jars that attracted Wall. “I saw Bea’s blog and I was so attracted to her aesthetic, because she had these beautiful Le Parfait glass canning jars, and she had them in this beautiful see-through cabinet in her kitchen.”
But there’s a serious purpose behind the beauty of living with less. Americans generate about 4.4 pounds of waste per person per day. Annually, we pile up about 254 million tons of waste, of which approximately 53 percent is trashed, usually ending up in a landfill. The rest is recycled or composted.
Much of that waste is plastic, and we’re producing more of it than ever. A recent report from the American Chemistry Council shows that nearly 700 new or expanded plastic processing facilities had been proposed in the U.S. since June 2012.“What’s happened is that, because of fracking in the U.S., we have a lot of natural gas, and it can be processed into the building blocks for plastics,” says Heather Trim, executive director of Zero Waste Washington, a nonprofit organization advocating for products that can be recycled and reused.
Mountainous landfills, plastic in the oceans, plastic in the guts of turtles, seabirds and whales: These are some of the reasons people give for reducing their consumption of plastic, and many of those people are Seattleites. The city, of course, has been at the forefront of the drive to reduce plastic and other waste: mandating strategies like composting, banning plastic bags in 2012, and most recently, banning plastic straws and cutlery.
But zero-waste proponents take these efforts a step further. They go to the grocery store loaded—not just with reusable grocery bags, but also with cloth bags and jars they can fill in the bulk section; they bring their own to-go containers, not just to the coffee shop, but to pick up takeout food. They join online neighborhood groups like Buy Nothing, through which people can post requests for items they need or images of stuff they have to give away. And they start groups, like the social and educational group Seattle Zero Waste, which Wall helped found in January 2018, because they’d love to see others join in the effort. The Seattle Zero Waste Facebook group has seen constant growth since January, with 533 members in mid-July and growing attendance at quarterly events. (Its biggest event, hosting Bea Johnson, sold out at 200 people, and there was a waiting list.) Says Wall, “The sentiment I hear often from members is, ‘I am so glad I found this community. I thought I was alone living zero waste in Seattle.’”
Wall started her zero-waste journey by reading Johnson’s blog, and then began working on following the “Five R’s” that Johnson promotes to cut down on waste: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and rot—in that order. Most people are familiar with those middle three words. The others require some explanation. “Refuse” is about saying no to things you don’t need—like a plastic straw for your drink at a restaurant or an extra plastic bag on your meat at the grocery store. “Rot,” in this case, refers to composting. (Wall also proposes adding a sixth “R,” for relationships, as she and others share ideas and community while reducing their waste.)On a tour of her house, Wall opens drawers in the kitchen to reveal glass and metal containers, many collected from secondhand stores or a Buy Nothing group in her neighborhood. She opens her refrigerator door to show that rather than plastic tubs containing common Seattle refrigerator staples such as hummus, sour cream and yogurt, there are glass storage containers of scratch-made food (including hummus), and a refillable glass jug of locally made Rachel’s Ginger Beer. Her freezer contains homemade baby food and homemade vegetable broth, in freezer-safe glass jars. When her son, Wesley, wakes up, she puts him in a high chair and hands him a spoon and half an avocado that had been stored in the fridge encased in its peel, no plastic wrap necessary.
Wesley’s brightly colored Exersaucer is the only plastic in sight, and, like many other items in the house, Wall picked it up secondhand, and will pass it along again when Wesley outgrows it. Her kitchen cupboards are filled with her favorite, Johnson-inspired Le Parfait jars full of bulk foods she uses in cooking, such as garbanzo beans and flour, mostly purchased at the PCC store a few blocks from her house. There are no bags of chips, granola bars or boxes of crackers. Wall does buy Cheerios for her toddler to snack on. “I just get the biggest box they have and use the plastic bag for a garbage liner,” she says, for the little waste her household does generate.
Other signs of a zero waster: a big basket of hand-me-down rags she uses instead of paper towels; refillable glass liquid soap jars (which Wall crafted from Goodwill purchases) on the bathroom counter; pieces cut from an old washcloth to fill in for cotton balls. Cloth diapers for her son. A Diva menstrual cup instead of tampons or pads for her. The clothes in her closet come from secondhand stores. Wall has relied on her Buy Nothing group for collecting baby things before and during her pregnancy, from onesies to a wipe warmer. When these items are no longer needed, “we just put it back to the community,” she says. Her family of three creates about 1 pound of landfill trash every one to two weeks, and she estimates they have reduced their waste by 91.5 percent.
If this sounds like it could be a lot of work, that’s probably true, particularly for people just beginning to live with less waste. It requires going against the single-use tide. “Zero waste is the goal, but it is not possible in our current infrastructure,” says Wall. Our society is built around throwing things away. You can’t go zero waste at the grocery store without bringing your own containers, and then cleaning them instead of tossing them.
The lifestyle all but requires making more food from scratch than many people are accustomed to. Many items we use daily, such as toothpaste and toothbrushes, nearly always come in nonrecyclable plastic packaging. Even if we bring home less single-use packaging, it still comes to us: while traveling, at work and in the mail. Buying secondhand or using neighborhood sharing groups such as Buy Nothing requires the time to check back repeatedly until you find the items you seek. But zero wasters say reducing consumption can also free up time because you shop less. And it can also save you money.
“Our grocery bill has been cut in half from going zero waste,” says April Dickinson, a Shoreline-area married mom with a preschooler, a kindergartner and a part-time job in communications for the Washington State Budget and Policy Center. (Her husband works full-time.) Dickinson says she even manages to buy more organic products than she used to, but saves money because she buys in bulk, cooks from scratch rather than spending extra for premade meals and sticks to a meal plan. “We don’t have a fridge stuffed full of food, and our pantry, much to my partner’s chagrin, is pretty bare,” she says.
But saving money wasn’t her first motivation for waste reduction. “I have eco-anxiety up the yin-yang,” she says. She became serious about moving toward zero waste about two years ago after watching an episode of Inside Man, a CNN documentary series; that particular episode is titled “United States of Trash” and is narrated by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock. “He talked about how, when he puts his garbage on the curb, he’s done thinking about it,” says Dickinson. “But he made a big point that someone has to deal with all this garbage. It doesn’t just disappear. That was my big moment—there’s this whole infrastructure we’ve created to deal with the stuff we throw away.”
Dickinson considers herself to be 75–80 percent toward reaching zero waste. She might sometimes cave on a bag of chips, for instance, if her family pushes hard enough. “I consider them more of a luxury item now.”
But she has stopped buying individually wrapped pieces of cheese, small tubs of yogurt, granola bars and coffee in to-go cups. If she gets café pastries, she puts them in her own container rather than take a bag. She brings either glass jars or cloth bags to the grocery store for bulk items. If she runs out of those containers, she will grab a paper bakery bag for a bulk item rather than use plastic and keep reusing the bag until it gets a hole in it.
She is also price-conscious, because although she and her husband have healthy incomes, they are focused on paying off debt. Occasionally, she says, she might choose an item packaged unsustainably if it’s substantially cheaper than the better alternative. And there are some things that are just hard to find without a lot of packaging. She’s half-Chinese, likes to eat Chinese snacks and finds it almost impossible to buy them in bulk. “All the Chinese snacks are wrapped in plastic,” she says. “Some of my favorite holiday foods, like glutinous rice ball soup, are actually triple-packaged.” Her hair is curly, and she and some other zero wasters with curly hair bemoan the bulk shampoo and conditioner that is inadequate for their hair texture.
Dickinson also speaks to another challenge of reducing consumption: living with others, like her husband, who don’t share her interest in zero waste. When he cooks (less frequently than she does), he sometimes makes ready-made meals that come in a plastic bag. On the other hand, he has grown to like shopping for clothing at consignment stores, she says. “He’s thinking about his dollar stretching farther, whereas I’m thinking about that, but more about reusability.”
Dickinson is also aware that zero waste is not an accessible lifestyle for everyone. If you are reliant on public transportation and don’t live near a grocery with bulk bins or good, unpackaged produce, for example, it’s likely impossible to do waste-free grocery shopping.
“When we talk about accessibility, what do we really mean?” she asks. “Bulk bins? More urban farming? How does that food get to the people who need it? Where does the burden lie? On individuals or on manufacturers?”
And when individuals have to do most of the work, even if it saves money, it can take too much time. “If people are just worried about feeding their families, if a single parent is trying to get dinner on the table, plastic packaging is probably not their number-one concern,” she says.
But most people can do something to reduce waste, proponents say. Start small. Bring your own grocery bags when you go food shopping. Don’t use plastic bags when you buy produce; instead, go without or bring along reusable produce bags. Store leftovers in reusable containers and skip plastic wrap. Consider buying clothing and other items at secondhand stores. Trade items with friends and neighbors. Use what you already have, rather than buying more. And don’t worry about not doing it perfectly.
Says Deb Seymour, another Seattleite who is reducing her consumption and blogs about it at Deb Goes Green, “There’s no such thing as a bad zero waster.”
So you want to reduce?
These resources will help you on your way
Buy Nothing Facebook groups: Visit buynothingproject.org for more info, or search for your neighborhood Buy Nothing Facebook group.
Pioneering the Simple Life: Website created by one of the Bainbridge Island founders of Buy Nothing.
Seattle Zero Waste: A group on Facebook and Instagram offering zero-waste dilemma solutions and inspiration. It also organizes social meetups every third Wednesday of the month, with details on its Facebook page. Join its email list by contacting seattlezerowaste@gmail.com.
Stores: Stores that have bulk bins include PCC, Ballard Market, Whole Foods, Central Market and Safeway. A new shop for a variety of bulk soaps is Public Goods and Services. West Seattle, 836 California Ave. SW. Eco Collective sells alternatives to single-use and plastic products. It also sells items at the South Lake Union Saturday Market and the Sunday Fremont Sunday Market. Ballard, 5201 Ballard Ave NW
Home salvage: Second Use
Policy-change work: zerowastewashington.org
Blogs and Instagram: Bloggers and Instagram users are a great source of tips and inspiration for going zero waste, and Seattle has a wealth of them.https://www.seattlemag.com/news-and-features/these-seattleites-are-working-hard-not-trash-planet
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‘Bring Me Tariffs’—How Trump and Xi Drove Their Countries to the Brink of a Trade War
Nov 28, 2018 | Wall Street Journal
By Bob Davis and Lingling Wei
On Sept. 21, Chinese President Xi Jinping convened an emergency meeting of two dozen top officials. The day before, the U.S. had taken Beijing by surprise by imposing sanctions on a research unit of the Chinese military, shortly after announcing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports. The Chinese didn’t know how to respond.
Mr. Xi arranged the meeting so hastily that three of the seven members of the group’s Standing Committee—China’s final arbiter of power—couldn’t attend because they were traveling, say individuals with knowledge of the discussions.
The party members, who gathered at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in central Beijing, eventually concluded that a forceful counter was essential. China canceled impending trade talks in Washington, suspended a meeting with U.S. military officials and summoned the U.S. ambassador in Beijing to complain.
“There was no point in talking when the entire atmosphere was so poisonous,” recalls a senior Chinese official. In an interview Monday, President Trump responded: “I just want our country to be treated fairly.”
China and the U.S. are on the brink of a new Cold War, with tensions over trade at the top of the agenda. Both are erecting increasingly punitive tariff barriers on either side of the Pacific, putting into play their reputations on the world stage and the fate of major industries, from cars to cellphones to agriculture.
Tariff Bill
The U.S. and China have levied tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of imports so far. President Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on the rest of China's $505 billion in imports, which include mobile phones and laptop computers.
That the two countries arrived at this point, despite years of tension, wasn’t inevitable. Rather, it played out this year in the corridors of power in Washington and Beijing, with both maneuvering—and often miscalculating.
China’s leaders misread Mr. Trump as a businessman first, rather than the politician whose fixation on trade had helped carry him into office. They mistook his Treasury secretary as the key interlocutor, not the White House hard-liners who truly had his ear. And they failed to recognize the growing resentments in the U.S., and the world, about their own winner-take-all approach to trade and economics.
The Trump administration, for its part, found that ratcheting up pressure on China’s leaders kept them off balance, but hasn’t persuaded them, thus far, to change their policies. Picking fights with Europe, Japan and other allies over steel, aluminum and other issues undermined Mr. Trump’s ability to rally international support. And strife between the moderates and hard-liners in his own administration made it difficult for the U.S. to forge a consistent strategy.
Messrs. Xi and Trump are preparing to meet in Buenos Aires on Saturday as part of the Group-of-20 leaders summit. Both sides say they want a new trade deal. Mr. Trump is pressing for concessions that China is resisting.
This account is based on hundreds of interviews with government and business officials in both countries, including some who participated in internal discussions.
Economic relations between the two nations began souring long before Mr. Trump became president.
increased the government’s role in the economy, supporting state-owned firms with loans from government-run banks and increasing pressure on U.S. firms to hand over their technology.
In February 2015, nearly half of the Western companies surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce in China felt they were less welcome than a year earlier.
Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the U.S., blamed U.S. companies for not adapting to China’s increasingly competitive marketplace. “Maybe the days of so-called easy money in China are gone,” he said.
The U.S. began taking a more confrontational approach to China at the end of the Obama administration. Mr. Obama pressed Mr. Xi on cybertheft and its military buildup in the South China Sea, and negotiated a trade deal with other Asian nations to contain China as a regional power.
Chinese leaders rejected U.S. complaints that it pressured U.S. firms to hand over technology and denounced the U.S. for trying to contain its rise. Under Mr. Xi’s banner of China Dream, the government rolled out domestic and foreign-policy initiatives that challenged U.S. dominance, including a state-led effort to boost high-tech industries and the “Belt and Road” program to project economic influence across Eurasia and Africa
.‘They listened very carefully’
Chinese officials thought they had sized up Mr. Trump: He was a businessman and pragmatist, a deal maker with whom they could negotiate. His family-run business empire looked familiar in a region where family conglomerates were common. “He’s transactional,” said one Chinese official earlier this year.
Mr. Trump had lashed out at China in his campaign, tapping into resentment in manufacturing communities hit hard by imports. Chinese leaders were inclined to discount such campaign rhetoric.
Before his inauguration, Mr. Trump’s campaign met with various China experts, including Henry Kissinger, who then communicated with Chinese officials.
“Everything is on the table,” Mr. Kissinger told Chinese leaders after he conferred with the president-elect—a message that the U.S. was open to negotiate on many issues, say Trump officials from that time. Mr. Xi told Mr. Kissinger he wanted to meet Mr. Trump one-on-one, laying the groundwork for a later summit at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort.
The atmosphere chilled in early December 2016, when Mr. Trump took a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. It was first time in nearly four decades an incoming president had talked to the leader of what Beijing considers a renegade province.
In discussions with the Chinese, the Trump team portrayed the call as a mistake, a new administration learning the nuances of foreign policy. After consulting again with Mr. Kissinger, Trump officials decided not to meet with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious leader whom China views as an enemy. They also arranged a meeting with Yang Jiechi, China’s most senior foreign-policy official.
In New York, Mr. Yang and Ambassador Cui lectured Trump representatives that “the territorial integrity of China is not to be questioned,” says Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, who attended the meeting.
Recalls Mr. Cui: “The Trump people at the time, they listened very carefully to us.”
Mr. Bannon, who sees China as an existential threat to the U.S., says he found the sessions “incredibly condescending.”
Shortly afterward, Mr. Bannon put together a China strategy group. Concerned that Chinese intelligence was monitoring Trump Tower, the group didn’t send drafts of their China report electronically. They agreed the new administration should pressure China on economic and security issues, while continuing high-level contacts.
Early on, Mr. Trump’s priority was getting help pressuring North Korea to give up nuclear weapons. In an effort to woo China, he broke his campaign pledge to label China a currency manipulator.
“I was doing North Korea and I didn’t want to let the negotiations come in the way, “ Mr. Trump said in the interview.
In April 2017, Messrs. Trump and Xi met at Mar-a-Lago. The two leaders announced a framework for a 100-day plan they said could ease economic strains. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross would take the lead negotiating for the U.S., and Wang Yang, then a vice premier known for backing economic reform, would lead the Chinese side.
That summer, Mr. Trump delayed announcing an investigation into Chinese trade practices for fear of losing Chinese support on North Korea, say administration officials. When he finally decided to launch the investigation, they say, he didn’t want to single out China, even though the probe was aimed specifically at alleged Chinese trade abuses.
“I don’t want to target China,” aides recall him saying. “Let’s leave China out of it.”
In the White House ceremony announcing the investigation, Mr. Trump mentioned China just once.‘They’re playing you’
Central to the talks between Messrs. Ross and Wang were U.S. complaints that inexpensive Chinese steel was flooding global markets and putting U.S. steelworkers out of jobs. The motto of Mr. Ross’s negotiating team, says a former Trump official, was “no steel, no deal.”
After months of negotiations, say U.S. officials, Beijing agreed to reduce production, as it had promised before, but at a faster pace. Chinese officials considered offering to open markets further to overseas financial firms, but decided against it, figuring they had offered enough.
Back in Washington, Mr. Ross’s package landed with a thud, seen as little more than a repackaging of past unfulfilled promises. Shortly before Mr. Ross was to meet Mr. Wang and other Chinese officials for drinks to celebrate the deal, he met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office.
“Shut it down,” the president told him about the talks.
Negotiations ended, as did Mr. Ross’s role as top U.S. representative, although an administration official says he remains part of the China negotiating team. Mr. Wang was promoted to a different position late that year.
To Mr. Trump and some advisers, the busted negotiation was evidence Beijing wanted to hook the U.S. into endless talks that led to few concrete results. To Beijing, it demonstrated the difficulty of dealing with the new administration. Chinese officials grilled foreign visitors about who really had Mr. Trump’s ear.
Four months later, when Mr. Trump flew to China for a state visit, Mr. Xi personally guiding him and first lady Melania around Beijing’s Forbidden City. The charm offensive flopped.
Mr. Trump had chosen U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to present U.S. trade complaints to the Chinese leader. Mr. Lighthizer, a former Ohio steel-industry lawyer who resented how Chinese imports had battered his industrial clients, talked so bluntly that some in Mr. Xi’s entourage say they were offended. Mr. Ross sat outside the meeting room, the Chinese noted, waiting to be consulted.
Chinese officials wanted to use one of Mr. Trump’s meetings at the Great Hall of the People to offer foreign firms greater access to China’s banking, securities and insurance sectors. The U.S. dismissed the idea as too little and too late.
“They’re playing you,” Mr. Lighthizer advised the president, according to participants.
Hours after Air Force One took off from Beijing, China announced the financial sector openings on its own. Beijing pledged to raise to 51%, from 49%, how much ownership foreign firms could take in Chinese securities ventures, among other things.
To date, no U.S. securities firm has received approval to expand in China. That has become a talking point for trade hawks in the administration who argue Beijing doesn’t follow through on promises.
‘Bring me tariffs’
In early April, Mr. Trump threatened to levy his first major round of tariffs on China, targeting $50 billion in imports. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke by phone with China’s Vice Premier Liu He to arrange a meeting in Beijing. Mr. Mnuchin was pushing for a deal while hawks in the Trump administration wanted a tougher stance.
President Trump approved the trade mission, over Mr. Lighthizer’s opposition. As a compromise, the president filled out the U.S. team with Mr. Lighthizer and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, whose book “Death by China” made him a reviled figure in Beijing.
On the first day of talks, Mr. Lighthizer presented U.S. demands in an eight-section document that called on China to reduce its $375 billion trade surplus with the U.S. by $200 billion within two years, to scrap policies and subsidies that supported favored industries, and to pledge not to retaliate if the U.S. imposed tariffs.
It was “surrender or die,” says Erin Ennis, senior vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council, a trade association of large U.S. firms.
On the second day, divisions within Mr. Trump’s team spilled into the open.
Mr. Mnuchin, the head of the U.S. delegation, had arranged a one-on-one sessions with Vice Premier Liu. Mr. Navarro confronted the Treasury secretary on the lawn of the Diaoyutai State Guest House, accusing him of a power grab. Confused Chinese officials watched from a distance.
When Chinese officials turned to Mr. Lighthizer in subsequent sessions, participants recall, he often replied, “I have nothing to say.” That led some in the two delegations to wonder whether he was there to negotiate, or to watch over Mr. Mnuchin.
Internal U.S. squabbling continued on the Air Force jet carrying the group home. During the flight, the White House released a terse statement about “frank discussions” and the need for the team to consult with Mr. Trump.
Messrs. Liu and Mr. Mnuchin met again a few weeks later and publicly declared a truce in May.
In White House meetings, Mr. Trump went the other way, say U.S. officials, telling his advisers: “Bring me tariffs.”
On June 15, the U.S. announced it would impose 25% tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods, in two steps, mainly components and industrial machinery. China said it would retaliate dollar-for-dollar, hitting soybeans and other U.S. agriculture. Three days later, Mr. Trump directed aides to identify more Chinese goods for tariffs.
Mr. Liu’s team spent the next few months analyzing the eight-section U.S. document, categorizing its demands into 142 separate items, of which the Chinese said they would consider negotiating 122. Mr. Liu delayed telling Washington what was on its list or what it was willing to negotiate.
Warring camps
A pattern emerged. Mr. Trump threatened tariffs on Chinese goods. Chinese and American negotiators huddled. Negotiations failed. The U.S. imposed the tariffs—now covering half of China’s $500 billion in U.S. imports—and China, which imports far less, retaliated.
Three men became key behind-the-scenes players: Mr. Liu for China and Messrs. Lighthizer and Mnuchin for the U.S.
Mr. Liu, a 66-year-old economist, is one of four vice premiers. He has known Mr. Xi since childhood. Earlier in his career, he cemented his reputation in the West as a reformer when he met with U.S. economists and told them the U.S. could pressure Beijing to open its economy more. Now he is in charge of policy-making for the Chinese economy, although U.S. negotiators wondered whether he had the clout to push through changes.
Mr. Lighthizer appealed to the president’s blue-collar leanings, which led him to believe China had ripped off the U.S. and needed to be punished. In White House meetings, Mr. Lighthizer sometimes said Beijing was getting even for the Opium Wars between Britain and China in the 1800s by shipping fentanyl to America. (China has denied it is a major supplier.)
He saw tariffs not only as a tool for the trade battle, but also to prod U.S. industries to shift investment away from China and slow China’s technological advance.
Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, saw himself as the administration’s chief financial officer, with wide latitude to take initiatives, allies say. That put him close to Mr. Trump the businessman, who often telephoned CEOs who did business in China— Blackstone Group LP’s Stephen Schwarzman and Wynn Resorts founder Steve Wynn—who urged him to cut a deal.
Mr. Mnuchin sought advice from his former Goldman boss, Hank Paulson, a George W. Bush Treasury secretary who counted senior Chinese leaders as friends. Mr. Paulson talked or met with Mr. Mnuchin 11 times through March 31 of this year, according to government calendars, but not once with Mr. Lighthizer. A Treasury official says Mr. Mnuchin consulted Mr. Paulson on a variety of subjects, including Treasury’s role in setting China policy.
Time and again, Chinese officials turned to Mr. Mnuchin for a path to Mr. Trump. Time and again, Mr. Lighthizer’s views won out.
‘Serve as a bridge between our two governments’
Since the 1980s, China has counted on U.S. corporate leaders to push back against pressure from Washington. Lobbying by executives helped limit sanctions after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and to win support for China’s WTO entry.
One of Mr. Xi’s advisers, 70-year-old Wang Qishan, China’s vice president, considers himself an expert on the West. In the 1990s, when he was head of the state-owned China Construction Bank , he worked with Mr. Paulson. He tells visitors about his love of Mark Twain and Jack London novels and the Netflix drama “House of Cards.”
When he met with U.S. executives in Beijing early this year, he cited ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu: “If you know the enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” China understood the U.S. better than the other way around, Mr. Wang told them, and would be willing to endure far more pain rather than concede.
That might have been a misjudgment. U.S. business groups, which told the White House tariffs make it harder to do business, had little impact on an administration that wanted U.S. companies to pull up stakes in China. It had renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement, in part, to make Mexico an investment alternative.
Three big Washington trade groups that have led nearly every free-trade battle in Washington—the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers—were now calling for changes in Chinese industrial policies, fed up with alleged theft of the technology secrets.
China’s Commerce ministry dispatched agents around the country to quiz U.S. firms about their plans and to persuade them to stay put. Changes were on the horizon, Beijing made clear, including tariff cuts and reduced regulation. Officials emphasized easing restrictions for foreign auto companies—a promise Mr. Xi made in April.
“All these things are what China has intended to do all along,” says a senior policy maker in Beijing. “Trump helped speed things up a bit.”
In June, Mr. Xi gathered a group of 20 CEOs from foreign firms such as Goldman Sachs andHyatt Hotels Corp. to warn them they could be caught in the crossfire of a trade war.
“In the West, you have the notion that if somebody hits you on the left cheek, you turn the other cheek,” he told the foreign executives, according to people familiar with the session. “In our culture we punch back.”
At the end of the gathering, his frustration boiled over. “We respect your democratic system,” the Chinese leader said, according to people familiar with the session. “Why can’t you respect ours?”
In August, China Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen flew to Washington and met representatives of a dozen big U.S. companies. “Serve as a bridge between our two governments instead of a wedge,” he told them, according to participants. “You may have frustrations and concerns, but I hope you won’t exaggerate those issues.”
Intel Corp. Vice President Peter Cleveland told Mr. Wang that Intel was committed to China for the long term. But he urged China to make some of the changes the U.S. sought, including easing government pressure on U.S. firms to transfer technology to their Chinese partners, according to people who attended the session.
International Business Machines Corp. Vice President Chris Padilla told Mr. Wang that unless the trade fight ended, his company would have to consider shifting its purchases elsewhere, according to the people who attended. Once that started, it would be tough to move it back.
IBM and Intel declined to comment.
‘We are under no pressure to make a deal’
In Beijing, the government settled in for a long battle. China’s economy was slowing, which had the potential to stir resentment against one-party rule and weaken the government’s negotiating position with the U.S.
Mr. Xi resisted making changes the U.S. demanded, including reducing subsides to state firms and scaling back state-led industrial policy. He traveled to the northeast, China’s Rust Belt, to call on the nation to become more self-reliant.
Chinese leaders made an effort to divide U.S. allies over the trade issues, and met this year in Beijing with the leaders of the European Union, France, Germany and Japan. The U.S., EU and Japan, however, have been meeting to see whether they can build common positions against Chinese subsidies and technology transfer, and to press those issues at the WTO.
In late August, the U.S. held hearings on its plan to impose tariffs of as much as 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods, one of the last steps before imposing the duties. Beijing pledged to match U.S. tariffs, but couldn’t equal that total. China imported $130 billion in goods from the U.S., and needed U.S. semiconductors and software.
Chinese leaders again decided to seek a settlement. Encouraged by Blackstone’s Mr. Schwarzman, they requested a meeting with Mr. Mnuchin, offering to send Mr. Liu—once again—to Washington.
As part of the diplomatic minuet of arranging such sessions, the Chinese side wanted to be invited. In an Oval Office session in September, Mr. Trump dictated to the Treasury secretary how such a letter should read.
Shortly before midnight on Sept. 12, the Journal reported the U.S. had invited Mr. Liu. A few hours later, China’s foreign ministry confirmed the invite.
The report infuriated the president, his aides say, because it appeared he was asking for the meeting, and was weak. At 7:15 the next morning, Mr. Trump tweeted: “The Wall Street Journal has it wrong, we are under no pressure to make a deal with China.”
Plans for the meeting started unraveling, officials from both countries say. “I don’t really care” whether the Chinese come, Mr. Trump said in meetings with his trade advisers.
Mr. Trump said in the interview he disagreed with Mr. Mnuchin on the prospects for a settlement. The Chinese “were not ready to make a deal,” he said.
He did accept a proposal by Mr. Mnuchin to limit new tariffs to 10% through the end of the year, before jumping to 25%, the rate the U.S. had already imposed on other goods. That would limit the impact on U.S. retailers before Christmas, Mr. Mnuchin argued, and would set a new deadline that could prompt fresh talks.
On Sept. 17, a week before Mr. Liu was scheduled to arrive in Washington, the White House announced the tariffs. That surprised the Chinese, who had thought Washington would delay the decision until after the talks.
On Sept. 21, Mr. Xi held his emergency Politburo session and canceled Mr. Liu’s trip. When the U.S. put new tariffs in place three days later, China responded with new tariffs of its own.
On to Buenos Aires
China’s leaders wanted to see what happened in the U.S. midterm elections. If President Trump’s party took a drubbing, they figured, perhaps he would soften his positions on China. When Republicans held on to their Senate majority, however, Mr. Trump declared victory.
As Messrs. Trump and Xi prepare to meet in Buenos Aires on Saturday, officials from both countries are examining the possibility of delaying higher U.S. tariffs until the spring, and launching new talks about Chinese economic policy. Mr. Trump had said Monday that it is “highly unlikely” he will hold off on tariffs.
Beijing this month sent U.S. officials an outline of economic-policy changes it might consider. The offer repeats many existing pledges, such as removing caps on foreign investments in autos and financial services, officials on both sides say.
Mr. Trump’s team is pressing for more details and deeper changes.
Looking for clues about what the White House is up to, Chinese officials pored over an October speech by Vice President Mike Pence in which he accused China of offenses ranging from abusing its economic power to militarizing the South China Sea. They debated whether the speech represents a broader U.S. strategy to contain China’s rise or is a negotiating tactic aimed at further pressuring Beijing.
The Chinese still aren’t sure which Trump will show up when the two leaders get together—the leader who surprised China with his determination to see tariffs through, or the deal maker Chinese leaders thought they knew.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bring-me-tariffshow-trump-and-xi-drove-their-countries-to-the-brink-of-a-trade-war-1543420440?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
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Canada Proposes Pollution Prevention Plan for Triclosan
Nov 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
Canada has released a proposed notice to require the development of pollution prevention plans for triclosan, following the substance’s addition to the country’s toxic substances list earlier this year.
Triclosan is an antimicrobial agent and preservative used mostly in consumer products, such as personal care items, cleaning products and non-prescription drugs.
The Canadian Department of the Environment has notified its intent to require any manufacturer or importer of cosmetics, natural health products and drugs to prepare and implement a plan to prevent triclosan pollution. Anyone using or importing more than 100kg in a calendar year for these purposes would be subject to the requirement, with the exception of those using it exclusively for export or transit through Canada.
The proposed notice calls for companies to "endeavour to achieve and maintain" a minimum reduction of 30% of the total mass used annually in products relative to the base year of 2011.
It also floats a steep reduction for new or expanded uses of triclosan. The aim here is for a minimum reduction of 95% of the total mass a business uses annually relative to the most recent year, for those who become subject to the notice after it has been finalised.
Manufacturers and importers should consider the use of alternatives that would reduce or minimise harmful effects to the environment and human health, the proposal says. It also emphasises the importance of considering the combined effect of triclosan and similar substances, such as methyl-triclosan and triclocarban.
The proposal is open for public comment until 23 January 2019.
Assessing risk
Canada added triclosan to its list of toxic substances – schedule 1 of the the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (Cepa) – in July this year.
The move followed a risk assessment that concluded that the substance is "entering or may enter the environment at levels that are harmful to the environment, but not to human health."
Triclosan is highly toxic to a variety of aquatic organisms, such as algae and fish, as well as certain soil organisms. The high levels of environmental exposure happen as a consequence of inadequately treated wastewater entering soil or surface water, according to the Canadian government.
The substance also was assessed for its impact on both liver and thyroid function, but it was determined that it is not harmful to human health at current levels of exposure.
Triclosan is not manufactured in Canada, but is imported into the country. There are no limits on the use of triclosan in cosmetics in the US, though it is restricted in antibacterial soaps and healthcare antiseptics.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72345/canada-proposes-pollution-prevention-plan-for-triclosan
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Canada Finds Five 'Poly(Bios)' Substances Not Harmful in Final Assessment
Nov 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
A Canadian government screening assessment of five "poly(bios)" substances for their potential for harm to humans and the environment has determined that they do not meet the toxicity criteria set out in section 64 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Cepa).
The result effectively rules out regulatory risk management measures under the Act.
"Although there is moderate exposure of Canadians to some of the substances in the poly(bios) group, they are all considered to have a low risk of harm," the government said in its final assessment, published on 24 November.
The five substances are:· tannins, used in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, fabric and textile industries;
· humic acid, found in soils, coals, peats and water ecosystems. It is used in cosmetics and natural health products;
· oxidised starch, used in Canada in the paper and textile industries, and as a food ingredient;
· 2-hydroxy-3-(trimethylammonio)propyl ether, chloride (SEGAC), used in the pulp and paper industry; and
· Guar gum, 2-hydroxy-3-(trimethylammonio)propyl ether, chloride (GEGAC), used in the personal care products industry.
Tannins, humic acid and oxidised starch are considered substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products or biological materials (UVCBs). When previously evaluated, they were identified as requiring further assessment for potential human health risks.
SEGAC and GEGAC are polymers of the polysaccharide class. They required further evaluation for potential ecological risks. Although exposure for both was found to be high, this was considered unlikely to pose a risk to human health, since their hazardousness in these terms was determined low.
Industry data indicated that all the substances are imported into Canada and that tannins and oxidised starch are also manufactured in the country.
https://chemicalwatch.com/72417/canada-finds-five-polybios-substances-not-harmful-in-final-assessment
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Cefic Prepares Mid-Century Chemicals Industry Strategy
Nov 28, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Findings from a recently published report will serve as recommendations on the future of the European chemicals industry for the next European Parliament and Commission, Cefic has said.
The report forms part of a strategy, due in March, on the industry in 2050 and comes ahead of elections for a new EU Parliament and Commission next June and November respectively.
The organisation says that by mid-century the chemicals industry will be facing many new challenges, including meeting the demands of a global population that could reach nine billion, and the threat of climate change.
To this end it says it wants to target the next generation of European policy makers and open a "meaningful" discussion with them. "The Commission is drafting handover documents as we speak, and a new Commission will develop its own priorities and plans. So we better inform them about priorities and the way forward for the chemical industry," a Cefic spokesperson told Chemical Watch.
The Copenhagen Institute of Futures Studies (CIFS) conducted the study – The European Chemical Industry in a 2050 perspective – on behalf of Cefic in June. It gauged responses from 195 chemical industry experts and 92 respondents from other industries, academia and the public sector.
The purpose was to capture expert views and expectations from 90 questions concerning future developments in the economy, geopolitics, society, technology and environment. The questions were developed on the basis of assumptions laid out in an earlier "foresight report", authored by CIFS in collaboration with Cefic.Study findings
Fears over the environmental impact of chemicals stay "high on the agenda" and European initiatives to reduce pollutants will "intensify over" coming decades, including the focus on reducing plastic waste, the report says.
Industry can expect to operate within a "changing and challenging" regulatory framework.
The majority of respondents said they would prefer "incentives and stimuli" rather than increased regulation or more communication on negative consequences of chemicals use.
And chemical experts were more likely to think EU regulations would decrease the competitiveness of the industry, while non-chemical experts thought the opposite.
However, by 2050 the EU’s strict regulatory environment will have driven the European chemicals industry to be "first movers, gaining a competitive edge compared with other regions", the report says. Yet it warned that government support for national champions elsewhere "continues to be problematic for creating a level playing field".
Earlier this year, Cefic director general Marco Mensink said it is time to develop a "smart REACH foreign policy" in which REACH® compliant becomes a globally recognised brand. The spread of the acceptance of the regulation around the world could, Mr Mensink said, avoid duplication costs and make markets more accessible.
Additionally, a "substantial" majority of respondents said industry should engage more in the societal debate around chemicals in products and waste. They advocated "an even more proactive and less defensive role" in the industry’s ways of engaging – especially with NGOs, says the report.Next steps
Cefic said that as well as the EU Commission and Parliament, it will share the report with:
· national governments;
· UN Environment;
· the OECD;
· World Business Council For Sustainable Development (WBCSD); and
· NGOs and other related organisations.
Once the strategy is released, it will embark on a ‘roadshow’ to engage in discussions with stakeholders on the future of the industry.
The organisation has worked in "close consultation" with its members. The report, the spokesperson said, is "a first for the chemical industry to consult stakeholders on our assumptions".
https://chemicalwatch.com/72424/cefic-prepares-mid-century-chemicals-industry-strategy
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Groups Detail State Rule Gaps Amid Methane Rollback
Nov 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Wilderness Society are highlighting the regulatory gaps in existing state oil and gas methane rules amid the Trump administration's repeal of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule limiting methane waste on federal lands, in what could bolster efforts to shore up the state programs and challenge the repeal in court.
“States have wildly different approaches when it comes to managing natural gas waste,” the groups write in a Nov. 27 press release announcing the new report, “The State of Methane.”
“Colorado and California have existing requirements that meet or even exceed portions of the 2016 BLM rule, while other states, such as New Mexico and Montana, have some of the weakest state regulations in the West, leaving significant sources of methane waste completely unregulated,” the report adds. “Relying on this patchwork approach will lead to inconsistent standards across our public lands and more importantly will result in pollution and the continued waste of taxpayer owned resources.”
The new analysis comes amid ongoing calls to strengthen state controls on oil and gas methane emissions to remedy the Trump EPA's rollback of its separate methane limits for new sources in the sector. Some environmental groups assert that EPA is not properly tallying emissions reductions -- or lack thereof -- from current state programs.
The report includes a detailed chart that ranks how closely eight key state programs track -- in percentage terms -- with the protections of the repealed BLM program, using a 27-point scale that accounts for nine major elements of the original BLM rule. Those elements include leak detection and repair provisions, waste minimization plans, flaring limits and other elements.
The comparison concludes that of those eight programs, Colorado's ranks highest in protectiveness -- at 74 percent of the protections in the original BLM rule -- while New Mexico ranks lowest, at 22 percent. Montana's program comes in at 33 percent, Alaska's is 27 percent, Utah's is 44 percent, North Dakota's is 48 percent, Wyoming's is 55 percent and California's is 64 percent as protective.
The report also includes individual analysis of state programs, including where they fall short of or exceed the now-rescinded federal requirements.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/groups-detail-state-rule-gaps-amid-methane-rollback
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Offshore Energy Essential for US National Security, Economic Prosperity
Nov 28, 2018 | Real Clear Energy
By Jim Webb & Jim Nicholson
It is self-evident that improved living standards around the world and a growing global economy will only continue with increased access to energy, of all sorts. We know from past experience that any interruption in our energy needs, temporary or otherwise, affects every one of us personally. Such interruptions also can have dramatic effects on our economy and on our national security. While alternate energy sources are welcome additions to maintaining our energy leadership, for the foreseeable future, the better economics and reliability in this regard are expected to come principally from oil and natural gas.
Projections show that natural gas and oil will supply an estimated 60 percent of U.S. energy needs in 2040, even under optimistic scenarios for renewables. Energy requirements in the rest of the world will be increasing as well. American ingenuity and productivity has been meeting this challenge, in addition to efforts in alternate energy programs. According to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, in August of this year the U.S. became the world’s No. 1 oil producer. To understand how important full energy independence is to every American, one need only look at the turbulence in our recent relations with big oil producers such as Iran, Russia, and even Saudi Arabia, who would otherwise have the potential to disrupt our economy, our national security strategy, and our very way of life.
Fueled by advanced technology and determined productivity, U.S. oil and gas producers are setting records. But to date, the American energy revolution has been primarily an onshore juggernaut, even as worldwide oil exploration in offshore areas has been increasing. Government policy has limited offshore efforts here at the same time as other countries have expanded their efforts, encouraged by vastly improved technology and by the demand for more energy to fully develop the growing, competitive economies of countries such as China.
Several Latin American countries, led by Mexico and Brazil, have reformed their regulatory approaches and are aggressively pursuing offshore projects from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic seaboard. Here in the U.S., government policy has kept as much as 94 percent of federally controlled offshore acreage off limits even to energy exploration. With modern technology it is possible to locate potentially productive sites far offshore – well beyond visibility from the coastline – and to develop them using vastly improved safety practices and working closely with federal regulators and state and local governments.
The Gulf of Mexico has great potential for such safe expansion of offshore exploration, and the Mexican government is pursuing this potential even as much of the Gulf remains off-limits to American exploration. In 2017, the areas in the Gulf of Mexico currently available for our development supplied 1.7 million barrels of oil per day, which amounts to about 18 percent of U.S. total production. Government estimates indicate there could be billions of barrels of oil, and natural gas supply measuring in the trillions of cubic feet, in offshore areas that are now restricted.
Mexico, having passed energy reform legislation in 2013, is aggressively pursuing such projects on its side of the Gulf. In February its government awarded 19 contracts for exploration, including one to a Chinese bidder. Brazil has passed similar legislation and is pursuing multiple projects in the South Atlantic.
Contrary to current U.S. policies, offshore exploration is a growing international business endeavor. Our outmoded policies in the U.S., do not reflect today’s technological expertise and capabilities any more than a cell phone or computer from the 1980s reflect our ability to communicate today. Developing offshore resources can also generate enormous revenue and new well-paying jobs here at home. Recent studies show energy development in the Atlantic and Eastern Gulf of Mexico could contribute tens of thousands of jobs and $1 - $2 billion in annual tax revenue in each of the states of Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia within 20 years of leasing.
The time has come to take advantage of our Outer Continental Shelf. Why should the United States operate with one arm tied behind its back? Other countries are aggressively harnessing their oil and natural gas resources in the Outer Continental Shelf. Shouldn’t we be at least quantifying it now, and carefully planning for its possible development in the future?
For our national security, for our economic security, and for thousands of American jobs, we should move forward, and we should do so soon. It takes about ten years to research, gain approvals, and deliver to market the offshore oil and natural gas products that will service America’s energy needs. We should not wait until an emergency several years down the road forces us to act in a crisis mode.
Americans have been asking for good leadership and careful planning on many fronts. Here is a perfect place to stand up and lead and protect our economy and national security, so beholden to an assured energy supply.
Jim Webb is Former Secretary of the Navy and former Democratic Virginia Senator. Jim Nicholson is Former Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. They are National Chairs of Explore Offshore.
https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2018/11/28/offshore_energy_essential_for_us_national_security_economic_prosperity__110364.html
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Shale Boom Raises Specter of Gulf Coast Oil Terminal Glut
Nov 28, 2018 | Bloomberg (In Real Clear Energy)
By Catherine Ngai
The race to export U.S. shale oil overseas is about to get fierce, with at least nine proposed terminals angling for a piece of a very limited pie.
Within 18 months, new pipelines opening in the nation’s most prolific shale basin promise to carry an added 2 million barrels of oil a day to the Gulf Coast. But the extra crude will arrive at a time when existing terminals in the Corpus Christi area can already offer only about 300,000 barrels a day of unused capacity.
Meanwhile, some of the terminals proposed are being designed to load a supertanker every other day, each capable of carrying 2 million barrels. The result: It’s likely only one or two new terminals are needed, with the edge going to companies such as Enbridge Inc., whose Freeport, Texas, effort could be fed by two pipelines it already owns interests in.
"Anyone can build a terminal," said Chief Executive Officer James Teague of Enterprise Products Partners LP, one of the first companies to export oil from the U.S., in a conference call last month. "But it’s what’s behind that terminal that determines its success."
The race to export U.S. shale oil overseas is about to get fierce, with at least nine proposed terminals angling for a piece of a very limited pie.
Within 18 months, new pipelines opening in the nation’s most prolific shale basin promise to carry an added 2 million barrels of oil a day to the Gulf Coast. But the extra crude will arrive at a time when existing terminals in the Corpus Christi area can already offer only about 300,000 barrels a day of unused capacity.
Meanwhile, some of the terminals proposed are being designed to load a supertanker every other day, each capable of carrying 2 million barrels. The result: It’s likely only one or two new terminals are needed, with the edge going to companies such as Enbridge Inc., whose Freeport, Texas, effort could be fed by two pipelines it already owns interests in.
"Anyone can build a terminal," said Chief Executive Officer James Teague of Enterprise Products Partners LP, one of the first companies to export oil from the U.S., in a conference call last month. "But it’s what’s behind that terminal that determines its success."
Or in other words, success in the terminal business is as much about securing the barrels as it is about shipping them out.
U.S. oil exports have soared to nearly 2 million barrels a day since a near four-decade moratorium was lifted in late 2015, just as shale production kicked into high gear. Trafigura Group Ltd. and other trading houses have jumped at the opportunity to send those supplies to Europe and Asia.
But there’s been a problem: Pipeline shortages, particularly in the prolific Permian Basin, have limited how much oil makes it to the coast. Now, anticipating an end to those woes with three major new pipelines expected to open in 2019, several companies -- including Trafigura -- are lining up with plans to provide terminals that can take advantage of the change.
Industry analysts have predicted that exports will double by 2020 given increased export capacity and growing shale production.
Enbridge hasn’t released many details on its proposal for Freeport, which is about 175 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.
But it would likely be fed by the company’s own Seaway pipeline system, which runs south from the U.S. storage hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, as well as the Gray Oak pipeline it owns a stake in. Once completed, that pipe will run southeast from Midland, Texas, in the heart of the Permian, into Freeport and Corpus Christi.
To date, Singapore-based Trafigura is the only known company that’s submitted a formal permit application to build a deepwater terminal in the Corpus Christi area. The company’s Texas Gulf Terminals would move crude to a single-point mooring system a few miles offshore, where they would plan to load a supertanker every other day.Drawing Fire
But as the first out of the box, Trafigura is also the first to draw fire. The Port of Corpus Christi has hired a lobbyist to voice their concerns about the plan, according to the Caller Times newspaper. The proposal would include an onshore storage facility and a booster station, the newspaper reported.
The lion’s share of crude exports now leave from around Houston given the expansive network of inbound pipelines, storage tanks and dock space in the Houston Ship Channel. But that activity can also prohibit new growth, some say, with concerns about congestion limits.
That makes Corpus Christi, a steadily growing export hub, an attractive option. Many new Permian pipelines slated to come online are ending up there, pushing an infrastructure bottleneck from the shale play south. That ultimately builds a strong case for new terminals to be constructed.
There’s currently about 1.58 million barrels a day of pipeline capacity into Corpus, according to Genscape. Kpler data show terminals there loading as much as 1.9 million a day, leaving about 300,000 barrels a day of surplus capacity, not including demand from local refiners.Five Proposals
Trafigura’s proposal is one of five for the Corpus Christi area that would rely on the three new pipelines coming online in 2019. They comprise the Plains All-American Pipeline LP’s Cactus II conduit, with a capacity of 585,000 barrels a day; Epic Midstream LLC’s EPIC line, with 600,000 barrels a day; and the Grey Oak line, owned jointly by Enbridge, Andeavor and Phillips 66, with about 900,000 barrels.
Beyond Trafigura, the other companies proposing terminals for the area include Magellan Midstream Partners LP, Carlyle Group LP, Buckeye Partners LP and Flint Hills Resources LLC.
For its part, Buckeye said that its marine terminal - a joint venture with Phillips 66 and Andeavor - will have storage capacity and connectivity to the Gray Oak pipeline. Meanwhile, Magellan has floated the idea of building its own pipeline from Cushing to Houston and then to Corpus.
Closely-held JupiterMLP, meanwhile, is following the path of Enbridge, proposing a terminal miles away from the Corpus Christi mash-up.Brownsville, Texas
Its effort -- in Brownsville, Texas, about 163 miles south of Corpus Christi -- has no domestic crude pipeline connections. Instead, the company aims to build its own pipeline to the Permian Basin.
"The more congested it gets, the longer it takes," said CEO Tom Ramsey of JupiterMLP. On the question of how many will succeed, he said "The number may be two or three, but you’re going to need more than one."
— With assistance by Sheela Tobben, Rachel Adams-Heard, and Dave Merrill(Updates with export forecast in eighth paragraph, Corpus capacity in 15th.)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-25/shale-boom-raises-specter-of-new-glut-gulf-coast-oil-terminals
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Two Pipelines in Pennsylvania, Ohio Amass More Than 800 Violations: Report
Nov 28, 2018 | The Hill -E2 Wire
By Michael Burke
Two pipelines being built across Pennsylvania and Ohio by Energy Transfer and its Sunoco subsidiary have amassed more than 800 state and federal permit violations, a Reuters analysis published Wednesday revealed.
Energy Transfer's Rover and Sunoco's Mariner East 2 pipelines have been under construction across Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively, since 2017 and have been hit with violations over spilling drilling fluid, creating sinkholes in backyards and improperly disposing trash, Reuters reported.
The violations allegedly included 681 federal violations accumulated by the Rover pipeline alone.
The pipelines — which will carry gas from Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia — were each originally scheduled to be completed by late last year, Reuters noted.
The news service compared the violations that have been amassed by the Rover and Mariner East 2 pipelines to four similar projects and found that, on average, the other projects had only 19 violations during construction.
James Lee, a spokesman for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement that the Rover pipeline has "fundamentally changed" how the state will authorize future construction.
“Ohio’s negative experience with Rover has fundamentally changed how we will permit pipeline projects,” Lee said.
Both the Rover and Mariner East 2 pipelines have long been seen as controversial. The Rover pipeline has had a number of spills, including two that released more than 2 million gallons of drilling fluid into wetland in Ohio last year, according to PBS.
Drilling fluids from the Mariner East 2 pipeline have also spilled into waterways.
Energy Transfer spokeswoman Alexis Daniel said that the company has gone "above and beyond" to meet regulations.
Energy Transfer also operates the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, the construction of which has led to protests that have drawn national attention.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/418686-two-pipelines-in-pennsylvania-ohio-amass-more-than-800-violations
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N.D. Regulators Approve Expansion of Roosevelt Plant
Nov 28, 2018 | AP (In E&E Greenwire)
North Dakota regulators have approved the $150 million expansion of the Roosevelt Gas Plant in McKenzie County, though they ordered Houston-based Kinder Morgan to minimize noise and light pollution for neighboring landowners.
The three-member Public Service Commission voted unanimously Monday to approve the expansion of the plant about 7 ½ miles south of Watford City, The Bismarck Tribune reported.
The plant processes 50 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Kinder Morgan subsidiary Hiland Partners Holdings plans to build another plant at the same location to process another 150 million cubic feet per day. It's expected to begin operating in a year. State Health Department officials are reviewing the company's application for an air quality permit.
Natural gas not captured at oil wells is burned off, a practice known as flaring that wastes the resource and can degrade air quality. North Dakota has struggled to build enough infrastructure to capture the gas. The Kinder Morgan project would be the sixth natural gas plant expansion or new plant under development in North Dakota.
"It's another important project to reduce flaring in the Bakken [oil patch], to help accommodate the massive amount of gas that's being produced along with the crude oil in the Bakken," Commissioner Julie Fedorchak said.
During a public hearing in September in Watford City, landowners who live within a mile of the plant said they had not been contacted by the company about the proposed expansion. Neighbor Denton Zubke said noise from the plant on certain days already is barely tolerable.
In their order, commissioners directed the company to take all "reasonable measures" to mitigate noise and light impacts to neighbors. Regulators also directed the company to provide landowners with contact information for company representatives.
Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Katherine Hill said in a statement that the company has talked with landowners about their concerns and is taking steps to minimize impacts.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/11/28/stories/1060107565
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Ewire: Bipartisan House Group Floats Carbon Tax Bill
Nov 28, 2018 | Inside EPA
Five House lawmakers from both parties are floating a carbon tax measure that is intended to advance discussion about carbon pricing in the next Congress and potentially shape any policy that might be enacted under a more favorable political environment.
The bill was introduced late Nov. 27 by Reps. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Francis Rooney (R-FL), John Delaney (D-MD), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Charlie Crist (D-FL).
According to a summary from the sponsors, the measure would impose a $15 “fee” per ton of carbon dioxide, with the levy increasing by $10 annually. It would cut national greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent in 10 years, relative to a 2015 baseline, with a 90 percent reduction target by 2050.
A press release from the lawmakers touts support from several environmental groups as well as conservative groups that have been pushing a market-based policy to address climate change. Among the backers are: Citizens Climate Lobby, Climate Leadership Council, The Nature Conservancy, Alliance for Market Solutions, Environmental Defense Fund, RepublicEn, Conservation Hawks, Niskanen Center, National Wildlife Federation and the National Audobon Society.
The measure is something of a successor to a bill floated in July by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) -- along with Fitzpatrick and Rooney. Curbelo lost a close campaign for re-election in the Nov. 6 midterms, dealing a symbolic blow to nascent efforts to attract significant GOP support to a climate bill.
Curbelo's measure imposed a higher upfront charge on carbon emissions -- $24 per ton -- though its 2 percent annual tax rate increase was much less aggressive than the Deutch bill.
The prior carbon tax bill would have used revenues from the tax largely to reduce gas taxes in the highway trust fund while also making a variety of other investments. In contrast, the new measure would return all revenues to the public in the form of a dividend that would offset higher energy costs for “most Americans,” the lawmakers say.
As Inside EPA's Doug Obey recently chronicled, the Deutch bill highlights continued momentum for the concept of a carbon tax, especially in the wake of the Trump administration's National Climate Assessment, which warned of increasingly greater economic, health and environmental risks from climate change.
But increasing talk of such a tax is spurring longstanding opponents of carbon controls to redouble their efforts to brand the policy as a political non-starter, ineffective or economically damaging.
And carbon tax supporters say the prominent opposition at some recent public forums has less underlying support among conservatives or industry then even five or 10 years ago, even as they acknowledge low odds of enacting the policy in the next Congress.
“The status quo is becoming untenable,” says one supporter.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-bipartisan-house-group-floats-carbon-tax-bill
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Judge Accuses EPA of 'Whistling past the Graveyard' on Ozone
Nov 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
At least one federal judge appeared highly skeptical today of EPA's refusal to expand a multistate program aimed at slashing regional ozone.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit weighed arguments in a dispute over a bid brought by nine states to broaden what's known as the Ozone Transport Region, a set of Northeastern states required by EPA to control emissions of pollutants that contribute to the spread of ozone across state lines.
The OTR, created under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, encompasses Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and the Washington, D.C., area.
In late 2013, nine members of the group petitioned EPA to add nine upwind states to the mix. They reasoned that Midwestern and Southern states from Illinois to North Carolina significantly contribute to ozone in the Northeast, making it harder for the downwind states to meet the 2008 federal ozone standards. The upwind states should be required to make the same aggressive ozone reduction efforts required in the OTR, the petition said.
Ozone, formed by the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in sunlight, is the main ingredient of smog and has been linked to many health problems, including children's asthma attacks.
EPA ultimately denied the expansion request last year, finding that other Clean Air Act provisions addressing interstate air pollution, including its "good neighbor" provision and an enforcement mechanism, were sufficient to address any problems. Eight states sued over the denial in December (Greenwire, Jan. 2).
Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, questioned EPA's logic during today's court session. He noted that EPA routinely misses deadlines for its good neighbor program, which requires the agency to review state implementation plans and craft federal plans where needed.
"It's anything but efficient and effective," he said. "It seems to me that the EPA is just whistling past the graveyard here."
Justice Department lawyer Sonya Shea, representing EPA, argued that the agency's denial of the petition is fully within its discretion and deserves the "high end of deference."
David Frankel from the New York attorney general's office countered that the court should still scrutinize EPA's analysis. He pointed to the Supreme Court's Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Fish and Wildlife Service decision yesterday, which held that when the Endangered Species Act uses the word "may" to give an agency discretion over an action, that decision can still be reviewed in court (Greenwire, Nov. 27).
That same approach should apply here, Frankel said, with the D.C. Circuit reviewing whether EPA failed to consider relevant factors.
The other judges on the panel were Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, and Senior Judge Raymond Randolph, a George H.W. Bush appointee. A decision is expected in the coming months.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/11/28/stories/1060107599
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EPA Chief Criticizes Climate Report over ‘Worst-Case Scenario’
Nov 28, 2018 | The Hill -E2 Wire
By Michael Burke
Acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Andrew Wheeler joined others in the Trump administration Wednesday in criticizing last week’s major climate change report for describing a “worst-case scenario.”
At a Washington Post event, Wheeler said the report “was written in 2016, and was at the direction of the previous administration,” and he speculated that the Obama administration “told the report’s authors to take a look at the worst-case scenario for this report.”
“I think a lot of the worst-case scenario information in that assessment is what’s concerning a lot of people in this administration,” he said.ADVERTISEMENT
Wheeler said the latest National Climate Assessment released last week by the federal government largely ignored the likelihood that innovations in the future would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, instead assuming that emissions will remain steady.
“I don’t think the assessment really took into account the innovation that we’ve seen and the technological advancement that we’ve seen in recent years. It basically freezes technology going forward,” he said.
The assessment forecast that by 2100, climate change could cause billions of dollars in economic losses — as much as a 10 percent loss of gross domestic product (GDP) — and kill thousands of people, among other impacts.
Wheeler’s critique largely reflects recent comments by President Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The EPA chief on Wednesday acknowledged that the worst case was just one of many scenarios the report examined, but he criticized the media for focusing on the worst case.
He argued that even the better cases “downplay innovation, innovation we’ve already seen in the marketplace."
Wheeler also alleged that the report’s GDP predictions were based on research funded by liberal environmental activist Tom Steyer.
The 2017 research was conducted by scientists from institutions like the University of California Berkeley, Rutgers University and University of Chicago. Steyer’s Next Generation funded it in part, as well as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and others.
The acting EPA head, who Trump said this month he will nominate for Senate confirmation to the post, said he did not look at the report before it was released, though he is in the process of reading through it now.
For future reports, Wheeler wants researchers to use methods that reflect less-dire scenarios.
“We need to take a look at the model that’s used for the next assessment. I think we need to get some more realistic projection on technology and innovation.”
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/418639-epa-chief-criticizes-climate-report-over-worst-case-scenario
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The Energy 202: Trump Officials Mount Full-Court Press Against Their Own Climate Report
Nov 28, 2018 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
The White House press secretary said it was "not based on facts."
The secretary of the interior said it focused only on the "worst scenarios."
And President Trump said that when it comes to the devastating effects of climate change described in it, "a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we're not necessarily such believers."
The publication Friday of a major climate report written by 13 federal agencies has prompted a series of high-level Trump administration officials, including the president himself, to mount a full-court press questioning its findings.
The fourth National Climate Assessment says the effects of rising temperatures, including more heat waves, coastal floods and forest fires, could collectively strip the United States of one-tenth of its gross domestic product by the end of the century. Already, the authors argue global warming “is transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us.”
The conclusions of the congressionally mandated report run counter to much of the rhetoric that has come from Trump's political appointees, who have tried to ramp up extraction of fossil fuels nationwide while often downplaying, or sometimes outright dismissing, their contributions to global warming.
Trump officials chose to publish the climate assessment on the Friday after Thanksgiving, when many Americans are busy shopping or spending time with family instead of reading the news.
But instead of being buried on Black Friday, the report has stayed in the headlines into the middle of this week. That's partially because its findings were particularly dire. But it's also because Trump officials chose to play them down.
Trump officials claimed the climate report focused on only worst-case scenarios, even as scientists who wrote the document said that is not true.
Appearing on an NBC affiliate in Sacramento while touring fire damage in California, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did acknowledge "the temperatures have risen" and the fire season "has gotten longer."
But he added: “It appears they took the worst scenarios and they built predictions on that. It should be more probability, but we’re looking at it.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the chief spokeswoman for the White House, expanded on that point during a press conference Tuesday.
"You have to look at the fact that this report is based on the most extreme model scenario, which contradicts long-established trends," she said. "Modeling the climate is extremely complicated science that is never exact."
Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Texas Tech University Climate Science Center and one of the more than 300 co-authors of the climate assessment, responded to Sanders on Twitter by saying "we considered many scenarios." The report indeed considered several scenarios, including the worst-case ones.
And the most robust dismissal of his own government's report came from the president himself.
During an interview Tuesday with The Post's Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey, Trump said he does not count himself among the “believers” who see the problem of climate change as dire and caused by humans.
“As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it,” he said.
Instead of addressing the root cause of recent rising temperatures — the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activity — Trump riffed on a number of other environmental problems, including the accumulation of trash in the oceans and smog-forming pollution in the air around the world.
“You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean. But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and you look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this world, including Russia , including many other places, the air is incredibly dirty, and when you’re talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small,” Trump said. “And it blows over and it sails over. I mean we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific. It flows and we say, ‘Where does this come from?’ And it takes many people, to start off with.”
Trump's response left some climate scientists baffled. “How can one possibly respond to this?" Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, told The Post.
The response to the report from Republicans outside of the executive branch was not universally dismissive. On Twitter, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the climate report "a glaring reminder of the long-term risks of climate change" while Sen. Susan Collins of Maine urged the Trump administration "to take a harder look at the consequences of inaction." Both senators are up for reelection in swing states in 2020.
WATCH: This morning, EPA acting administrator Andrew Wheeler and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will sit down for interviews at The Post for an Energy 202 Live event. Sign up here to receive a notification about the livestream.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/11/28/the-energy-202-trump-officials-mount-full-court-press-against-their-own-climate-report/5bfdba161b326b60d1280066/?utm_term=.c2bd293da3d6
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Trump Ties Skepticism to 'Intelligence'
Nov 28, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
President Trump yesterday in an interview with The Washington Post offered what's being cast as a confusing explanation for his skepticism of a federal climate report warning of dire consequences.
During the 20-minute interview, Trump was asked about his public comments that cast doubt on the latest publicly released chapter of the National Climate Assessment.
The report, released Friday, is the second volume of the assessment that's required under a congressional mandate.
The study, harnessing input from more than a dozen federal agencies, describes how global warming has already altered the natural world, and it uses a range of scenarios to forecast how the climate could change further as emissions rise or fall (Climatewire, Nov. 23).
A team of more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member federal advisory committee created the report, which was also revised by a host of federal agencies and a panel of the National Academy of Sciences.
But Trump, when asked about the report during the Post interview said, "One of the problems that a lot of people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we're not necessarily such believers."
He then pivoted to talk about how U.S. air and water have reached a "record clean," unlike China, parts of Asia, South America and Russia where the air is "incredibly dirty."
"And when you're talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over," the president continued. "I mean, we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific, it flows, and we say where does this come from. And it takes many people to start off with."
Trump noted that articles in the past have talked of "global freezing."
"They talked about at some point the planets could freeze to death, then it's going to die of heat exhaustion," he said. "There is movement in the atmosphere. There's no question. As to whether or not it's man-made and whether or not the effects that you're talking about are there, I don't see it — not nearly like it is."
Trump did not, however, discuss his beliefs about the mechanics of global warming. The majority of scientists agree carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas are fueling climate change.
The president's comments were criticized online by scientists, celebrities and lawmakers. One of the report's authors, Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University, said she found his remarks "frustrating" during an interview with CNN and that the report points to the changes already occuring due to climate change.
"You can say I don't believe in gravity," she said. "But if you step off the cliff, you are going down. So we can say I don't believe climate is changing, but it's based on science that's more than 150 years old."
Another author struggled during an interview with E&E News to find words to respond to the president's remarks.
"The fundamental science of climate change is not new. At the global level, if you put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it will increase the temperature of the planet, which has been known since the 19th century," said Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University.
Kopp said the report reaffirms, based on a vast body of scientific data and literature, that climate change and global warming are real, predominantly driven by human activities and are having an effect and harming people in ways we can see today. Those effects will grow worse as more greenhouse gases are put into the atmosphere, he added.
Despite that pushback, Trump officials, from White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the heads of agencies, are echoing the president's doubt.
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler at an event The Washington Post hosted in Washington, D.C., today said he believes humans are affecting climate change but said he's asked his staff to brief him on questions he has about the climate assessment (see related story).
And Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke yesterday claimed the U.S. Geological Survey has concerns about the assessment even though that agency's scientists played a central role in writing the report.
In an interview with a Sacramento, Calif., television station, Zinke incorrectly said the report relies only on the worst-case scenario (Climatewire, Nov. 28).
"It appears — and again, we're looking at it closely, I have a brief when I get back — it appears they took the worst-case scenarios and they built predictions upon that," Zinke said. "It should be more probability — but we're looking at it."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/11/28/stories/1060107613
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