Preview Newsletter
PM ACC Clips Report - May 13, 2019
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(ACC Mentioned) It’s Time to Wake Up to the Threat of Single-Use Plastics
May 13, 2019 | Waste 360
By Monica Wilson
With the May 10 vote to add new measures to restrict and bring disclosure to plastic waste trade through the U.N. Basel Convention, the years-long tremor shaking up plastic recycling became a massive earthquake. Countries will now... -
(ACC Mentioned) 186 Countries Have Signed UN Pact to Reduce Plastic Pollution
May 13, 2019 | Treehugger
By Katherine Martinko
But the United States has opted out. Nearly every country in the world has agreed to a legally binding pact to deal more effectively with plastic waste. The landmark agreement was reached this past weekend in Geneva, where a two... -
Landmark Plastic Waste Pact Gets Approved, but Not by U.S.
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Nearly every country in the world has agreed on a legally binding framework to reduce the pollution from plastic waste except for the United States, U.N. environmental officials say. An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic... -
Frustration, Miscalculation: Inside the U.S.-China Trade Impasse
May 13, 2019 | Wall Street Journal
By Lingling We, Vivian Salama, Michael C. Bender and Bob Davis
The U.S. and Chinese governments both sent signals ahead of their trade talks in Washington last week that a pact was so near they would discuss the logistics of a signing ceremony. In a matter of days, the dynamic shifted so... -
China Retaliates Against the U.S. With Its Own Higher Tariffs
May 13, 2019 | New York Times
By Keith Bradsher
China moved to retaliate against the United States, announcing plans on Monday to raise tariffs on a wide range of American goods. The decision, which follows President Trump’s increase in tariffs on Chinese goods last Friday... -
The Trump Administration's Jekyll and Hyde Relationship With Science
May 13, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Stuart Shapiro
In a little-noticed memo, several weeks ago, the Office of Management and Budget modified its guidelines on the Information Quality Act (IQA). These modifications increase the responsibilities of agencies to carefully respond when... -
The National Academies Illustrates the More Nuanced Value of Transparency in Science
May 13, 2019 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
Ever think about reproducibility in science? Turns out you’re not alone! The National Academies of Science (NAS) just spent a year and a half studying the status quo and have released some important findings. An NAS... -
TSCA Inventory: Inactive Designations Take Effect 5 August
May 13, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has announced that the TSCA inventory ‘inactive’ substance designations will take effect from 5 August. Beginning on that date, a substance listed on the inventory as 'inactive' will need to be notified through a Notice of... -
Council Questions Bill To Ban Chemicals
May 13, 2019 | The Post-Journal
By John Whittaker
A bill that is tucked into a package of legislation the state Assembly leadership is calling an Earth Day commemoration is drawing the ire of the Business Council of New York State. The legislation, S.501-B/A.6296-A... -
Change to PFAs Standard Stokes Dissent Within Alaska Agency
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
A decision by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to redefine levels of certain chemicals considered safe in drinking water has caused dissent within the agency. Sally Schlichting, who works in the agency's... -
Pharmacia May Pursue Insurers for PCB ‘Food Chain’ Claims
May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Pharmacia LLC may proceed with insurance coverage claims stemming from hundreds of cancer suits alleging exposure to PCBs in food, the Eastern District of Texas said. Under a 1995 insurance settlement, Monsanto Co., the... -
News Bayer Will Hire Firm to Probe Possible Spying by Monsanto (3)
May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Martin Sobczyk and Tim Loh
Bayer AG said it will appoint an external law firm to investigate a Monsanto project that French media said was designed to suppress criticism and lobby for approval of pesticides, including the controversial Roundup weedkiller. -
Bill Berry: We Should Be Cautious of Glyphosate Use
May 13, 2019 | The Cap Times
By Bill Berry
“Is Roundup the new DDT?” That question, posed by a member of a Wisconsin lakes group a couple years ago, stopped me in my tracks. It came during a presentation I made about banning DDT and how Wisconsin citizens led... -
(ACC Mentioned) Material Insights: ExxonMobil Plans $2 Billion Expansion in Texas (Video)
May 13, 2019 | Plastics News
By Don Leopp
The American Chemistry Council warns against trade escalations, ExxonMobil plans capacity expansions for elastomers and specialty olefins, and an United Nations meeting decided to include plastic waste in a treaty... -
Local Control in the US Gaining Steam … Again?
May 13, 2019 | National Law Review
By Darin J. Smith
On Tuesday, April 16, 2019, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 19-181 (SB19-181) into law. SB19-181 was a controversial bill as it made its way through the Colorado Legislature, and it is now a controversial piece of... -
FERC to Hold Technical Conference on Grid Reliability June 27
May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Cunningham
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission plans a technical conference on the reliability of bulk electric system on June 27. The conference will examine trends and risks the North American Electric Reliability Corporation considers... -
Barge Collision Spills Gasoline in Houston Ship Channel
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Multiple vessels collided in the Houston Ship Channel on Friday afternoon, spilling 9,000 barrels of a gasoline blend stock and forcing the partial closure of the commercial waterway. A 755-foot tanker collided with a tugboat pushing... -
Houston Shipping Channel Ship Collision Cleanup Continues After Toxic Spill, Reports of Fish Kill
May 13, 2019 | The Weather Channel
By Jan Wesner Childs
The Houston Ship Channel was reopened to traffic Sunday after a collision involving a tanker, a tugboat and two barges dumped 9,000 barrels of a toxic chemical, but concerns linger over possible water contamination. "We have... -
Dems Eye Big Infrastructure Package, With or Without Trump
May 13, 2019 | The Hill
By Scott Wong and Mike Lillis
If Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Trump can’t strike an infrastructure deal, key Democrats say they should push their own partisan bill through the House ahead of the 2020 elections. That strategy, backers argue... -
(ACC Mentioned) Stitched-Handle Rule Divides Bag Ban Supporters
May 13, 2019 | EcoRI News
By Tim Faulkner
The proposed Rhode Island ban on plastic retail bags is dividing some in the environmental community. Jonathan Berard, co-chair of Gov. Gina Raimondo’s Task Force to Tackle Plastics and executive director of Clean Water... -
U.N. Panel Sets New Guidelines for Estimating Emissions
May 13, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has updated its guidelines for governments to calculate national greenhouse gas emissions. The decision approving the refined methodologies for greenhouse gas... -
Trump Drags Feet on Climate Treaty, and Republicans Aren’t Happy
May 13, 2019 | Roll Call
By Benjamin J. Hulac
It has the support of industry heavy-hitters, environmental advocates and a bipartisan cushion of votes in the Senate. But the Kigali Amendment, a global treaty to limit hydrofluorocarbons — highly potent greenhouse gases found in air... -
Desantis Vetoes Bill That Would Halt Plastic Straw Bans
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has vetoed a bill that would have prevented Florida's local governments from banning plastic straws. DeSantis rejected the environmental regulation bill Friday, his first veto since taking office earlier this... -
Ewire: Democratic Rivals Swiftly Target Biden's Climate Positioning
May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA
Democratic presidential primary rivals are quickly targeting former Vice President Joe Biden's positioning on climate change, alleging that he is not staking out an ambitious enough stance as he seeks to stake out a “middle ground” on... -
The Energy 202: Democratic Rivals Pounce on Joe Biden Over Climate Change
May 13, 2019 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Joe Biden's rivals to win the White House in 2020 are trying to cast the former vice president as too soft on climate change after a recent report indicated Biden was seeking a “middle ground" on an issue that is animating the... -
UWAG and USWAG: The Secretive Utility Groups That Also Target EPA Safeguards Remain After Utility Air Regulatory Group Disbands
May 13, 2019 | Energy and Policy Institute
By Matt Kasper
The Utility Air Regulatory Group announced on Friday that its remaining members had decided to disband the embattled project after more than 40 years. UARG had been an unincorporated group of utilities represented by lawyers... -
Embattled Trade Group Tied to EPA Air Chief to Dissolve
May 13, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
After decades of battling Clean Air Act regulations, an influential power industry trade group based at EPA air chief Bill Wehrum's former law firm is putting itself on a glide path to dissolution. Members of the Utility Air Regulatory Group... -
Liberal Think Tank Executive Says Climate-Change Policy Shouldn't Be 'Middle Ground'
May 13, 2019 | The Hill - Hill.TV
By Julia Manchester
The executive director of the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, Felicia Wong, told Hill.TV on Monday that U.S. climate change policy should not be "middle ground," citing 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's reported...
Industry and Association News
TSCA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation and Infrastructure News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) It’s Time to Wake Up to the Threat of Single-Use Plastics
May 13, 2019 | Waste 360
By Monica Wilson
With the May 10 vote to add new measures to restrict and bring disclosure to plastic waste trade through the U.N. Basel Convention, the years-long tremor shaking up plastic recycling became a massive earthquake. Countries will now have the right to be notified in advance about plastic waste trade shipments and will have the right to refuse those shipments. In a few short months, global policy has taken a major leap forward.
After China banned imports of most plastic waste in 2018, developing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, have received a huge influx of contaminated and mixed plastic wastesthat are difficult or even impossible to recycle. Norway’s proposed amendments to the Basel Convention provides countries the right to refuse unwanted or unmanageable plastic waste.
The decision reflects a growing recognition around the world of the toxic impacts of plastic and the plastic waste trade. The majority of countries expressed their support for the proposal and more than one million people globally signed two public petitions from Avaaz and SumOfUs.
Yet, even amidst this overwhelming support, there were a few vocal outliers that opposed listing plastic under Annex II of the Basel Convention. These included the United States, the largest exporter of plastic waste in the world; the American Chemistry Council, a prominent petrochemical industry lobbying group; and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a business association largely composed of waste brokers. As the United States is not a party to the Basel Convention, it will be banned from trading plastic waste with developing countries that are Basel Parties but not part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
However, what the U.S. recycling industry does in this moment will define it for a long time to come.
Change is coming to the plastic industry itself, as brands and plastic producers are under increasing pressure to redesign packaging systems and reduce plastic production and marketing overall. The U.S. recycling industry can be pulled along with that change or can help lead calls for system and product redesign and waste reduction.
It was not hard to see this disruption coming years ago, a predictable outcome of brands and plastic industry pressure on cities and recycling companies to collect more plastic here in the U.S. At the same time, brands and plastic industry design changes resulted in plastic packaging and products less suited to recycling.
As collected no-value plastic became contamination, cities and recycling companies now have no idea where exported plastic waste collected for recycling is ending up. And the brands making the junk plastic also had no idea. And until recently, they bore little recognized responsibility for this problem.
In a “NOTHING WASTED! Pioneers & Visionaries” presentation at WasteExpo on May 8, I shared stories like what befell the village of North Sumengko in East Java, Indonesia, which turned from a largely agricultural community to a dumping ground for foreign plastic in the span of one year. These and other stories are described in detail in GAIA’s new report called “Discarded” and on wastetradestories.org, including astonishing pictures of U.S. plastic waste exports. As Martin Bourque, executive director of Ecology Center, observed after speaking at Basel Convention side event, "False claims by the plastic packaging industry about the recycling of mixed plastics has resulted in a complete disaster for communities and ecosystems, particularly in Asian countries, and a growing distrust of recycling industry by U.S. consumers."
As a result of increased scrutiny of the final resting place for exported plastic junk, the U.S. recycling industry is now taking the heat for single-use plastic problems created by brands, the plastic industry and the packaging industries. This situation is not dissimilar to the way cities and countries in Asia are being cast as the primary cause of plastic pollution in the ocean: the responsibility for increasing the amount of junk plastic in the marketplace lies at the feet of companies like Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Coca-Cola and other brands whose polluting business practices are exposed in brand audits.
I believe that many in the recycling industry personally care about building a circular economy, conserving resources and ending the intensifying pillaging of natural resources. Pollution from the plastic waste trade like this is surely not the legacy that people working in this industry seek.
It’s easy to see that we must take action to recycle better, not recycle more at any cost. And the recycling industry is in a unique position in the lifecycle of materials to make an impact. Recycling companies can follow the lead of companies like Eureka Recycling that track and disclose their recycling end markets, which are all in North America. The recycling industry must take action to end exports of plastic and even paper as quickly as possible and push for recycled content mandates and other ways to drive domestic recycling infrastructure overall.
But under any conditions, plastic recycling alone won’t be enough to fix the single-use plastic problem: to thrive, both the planet and the recycling system need less plastic. Upstream reduction of plastic will be vital. The recycling industry has an opportunity and responsibility to pull back the curtain on products marketed as recyclable that simply don’t fit, building ongoing, substantive feedback loops to brands, the packaging industry and plastic producers. Recyclers can send a message to brands: packaging is not recyclable unless it actually gets recycled.
Fundamentally, the entire recycling industry should wake up to the threat of single-use plastic and other disposables messing up the recycling stream and support new policies to reduce waste generation. If the quantity and quality of packaging in the marketplace continues at the current trajectory, collection and materials recovery facilities will be deluged in more junk, making quality recycling even more challenging. With less plastic overall, recycling for other commodities will be less contaminated, and recycling itself will be more successful. It’s time for the recycling industry to reject the idea of recycling more at all costs and focus on recycling better.
The brands and plastic producers can choose to move away from single-use packaging and come up with new systems that reduce waste overall. Some in the recycling industry already have been sending clear messages to brands and plastic producers, such as the National Recycling Coalition clarification that energy recovery of plastic waste is not recycling, an important distinction in the waste hierarchy that is being challenged by brands that call plastic-to-fuel and burning plastic in cement kilns a form of recycling. Let’s be clear: companies enabling wasting and further pollution are on the wrong side of history.
A few influential recycling companies are speaking out, like Recology CEO Mike Sangiacomo’s op-ed in San Francisco Chronicle titled “It is time to cut use of plastics.” He called for producers to take fast action to reduce plastic production and for policy if plastic industry doesn’t act quickly. “Dear Plastics Industry: We are Headed for a Divorce,” from Eco-Cycle Policy and Research Director Kate Bailey in Waste360, is another excellent example.
Follow the lead of mission-based nonprofit recycling operations like Eco-Cycle, Ecology Center, Eureka Recycling and Recycle Ann Arbor. They are skillful at running extremely successful recycling operations, giving meaningful feedback to producers and calling for innovative programs to reduce the generation of waste.
With single-use plastics, both our society and our planet are in a moment of crisis. It is moments of crisis that give us the biggest opportunities. I hope that here in the U.S. we will rise to the challenge and embrace the goal of reducing waste generation overall.
https://www.waste360.com/plastics/it-s-time-wake-threat-single-use-plastics
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(ACC Mentioned) 186 Countries Have Signed UN Pact to Reduce Plastic Pollution
May 13, 2019 | Treehugger
By Katherine Martinko
But the United States has opted out.
Nearly every country in the world has agreed to a legally binding pact to deal more effectively with plastic waste. The landmark agreement was reached this past weekend in Geneva, where a two-week summit concluded by adding plastic waste to the Basel Convention, a treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste between countries.
This means that countries now have the right to refuse plastic waste imports to their shores. From the Plastic Pollution Coalition's writeup:
"The amendments require exporters to obtain the consent of receiving countries before shipping most contaminated, mixed, or unrecyclable plastic waste, providing an important tool for countries in the Global South to stop the dumping of unwanted plastic waste into their country."
Ever since China banned plastic waste import in January 2018, other southeast Asian nations such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines have seen a drastic increase in the quantity of plastic being dumped on them, all in the name of recycling. But these countries are increasingly resistant to these imports, as they realize the profound health and environmental implications of receiving such dirty trash.
Ralph Payet, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Environment Program, called the agreement "historic", telling the Associated Press,
"It's sending a very strong political signal to the rest of the world — to the private sector, to the consumer market — that we need to do something. Countries have decided to do something which will translate into real action on the ground."
Norway spearheaded the initiative, which proceeded at a "blistering" pace by UN standards. The United States did not sign on, but will still feel the effects, as it exports to countries that do adhere to the Basel Convention and will no longer be interested in receiving the same trash. (The American Chemistry Council and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries were also vocal opponents of the amendment.)
From the Associated Press,
"The agreement is likely to lead to customs agents being on the lookout for electronic or other types of potentially hazardous waste more than before. 'There is going to be a transparent and traceable system for export and import of plastic waste,' Payet said."
In conclusion, this is an excellent move that will force many nations to deal with their own waste on their own soil – and to reckon with the disposable systems that are fuelling it.
https://www.treehugger.com/plastic/186-countries-have-signed-un-pact-reduce-plastic-pollution.html
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Landmark Plastic Waste Pact Gets Approved, but Not by U.S.
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Nearly every country in the world has agreed on a legally binding framework to reduce the pollution from plastic waste except for the United States, U.N. environmental officials say.
An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged Friday at the end of a two-week meeting of U.N.-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals.
Discarded plastic clutters pristine land, floats in huge masses in oceans and rivers, and entangles wildlife, sometimes with deadly results.
Rolph Payet of the United Nations Environment Programme said the "historic" agreement linked to the 186-country, U.N.-supported Basel Convention means countries will have to monitor and track the movements of plastic waste outside their borders.
The deal affects products used in a broad array of industries, such as health care, technology, aerospace, fashion, food and beverages.
"It's sending a very strong political signal to the rest of the world — to the private sector, to the consumer market — that we need to do something," Payet said. "Countries have decided to do something which will translate into real action on the ground."
Countries will have to figure out their own ways of adhering to the accord, Payet said. Even the few countries that did not sign it, like the United States, could be affected by the accord when they ship plastic waste to countries that are on board with the deal.
Payet credited Norway for leading the initiative, which first was presented in September. The time from that proposal to the approval of a deal set a blistering pace by traditional U.N. standards for such an accord.
The framework "is historic in the sense that it is legally binding," Payet said. "They [the countries] have managed to use an existing international instrument to put in place those measures."
The agreement is likely to lead to customs agents being on the lookout for electronic waste or other types of potentially hazardous waste more than before.
"There is going to be a transparent and traceable system for the export and import of plastic waste," Payet said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/05/13/stories/1060326449
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Frustration, Miscalculation: Inside the U.S.-China Trade Impasse
May 13, 2019 | Wall Street Journal
By Lingling We, Vivian Salama, Michael C. Bender and Bob Davis
The U.S. and Chinese governments both sent signals ahead of their trade talks in Washington last week that a pact was so near they would discuss the logistics of a signing ceremony.
In a matter of days, the dynamic shifted so markedly that the Chinese deliberated whether to even show up after President Trump ordered a last-minute increase in tariffs on Chinese imports because the U.S. viewed China as reneging on previous commitments.
Inside the cloistered Zhongnanhai government compound in Beijing, President Xi Jinping and his close advisers discussed how to respond to the tariff increase, given the talks were just days away, according to Chinese officials with knowledge of the decision-making process.
After huddling Tuesday to analyze a press conference given by the U.S.’s two top negotiators, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Chinese officials concluded that they should travel to at least avoid a rift that could be difficult to repair.
The recommendation went to China’s chief negotiator, Liu He, and ultimately to Mr. Xi. He decided to send the team even though Beijing was fully aware that the trip held little prospect of progress, given how quickly problems had arisen. “The goal was simply to keep the talks going,” said one of the Chinese officials with knowledge of the matter.
By the end of the week, that was as much as both sides could cite for their efforts: the avoidance of a serious rupture that would doom any prospect of a future deal and a commitment to stay near the negotiating table.
So far, the trade talks have provided little evidence that the two nations have found a formula for how to negotiate successfully since Messrs. Trump and Xi met in Buenos Aires Dec. 1, which paved the way to Washington last week.
China didn’t immediately impose new strictures on U.S. businesses, as it has done when things weren’t going well in the past. Mr. Liu is expected to brief Mr. Xi on the discussions he had in Washington before Beijing decides on the next course of action, according to the officials familiar with the process.
On Sunday, White House economics adviser Larry Kudlow said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” that China has invited Messrs. Lighthizer and Mnuchin to Beijing to continue trade negotiations, but that there were “no concrete, definite plans yet.”
Mr. Kudlow suggested one possible way out. He stressed twice during the Fox News interview that the American and Chinese presidents expect to meet again at the next G-20 in Japan at the end of June.
Bridging the trade rift may ultimately depend on the personal chemistry between President Trump and President Xi and their willingness to push matters forward after months of negotiations that have been full of positive intentions but thwarted by miscalculations, accusations of backtracking and unfulfilled expectations.
At stake are the rules for global trade in a world order upended by China’s rapid rise, and both sides are keen to project an image of strength. The longer the dispute lingers, though, the greater the risk of economic fallout for both countries, along with prolonged uncertainty for global stock markets, which have whipsawed as expectations for a deal ebb and flow. The accelerating 2020 presidential campaign also promises to add a volatile new dynamic to the equation.
An eventual trade pact could give the U.S. and China momentum and a possible key to rapprochement on a number of other tense fronts, from the U.S. campaign against Huawei Technologies Corp. over security concerns in the telecommunications industry to navigating rights in the South China Sea.
After the Trump-Xi meeting in Argentina, on the sidelines of the G-20 conclave, the U.S. said it would suspend increasing tariffs from 10% to 25% until March 1 if American concerns were met. As that date approached, Mr. Trump made the suspension indefinite. His patience ran out May 5, when he tweeted tariffs would rise five days later. The increased tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods took effect Friday.
Throughout the negotiations, there have been tensions all along the way. U.S. officials complained in February that China was reneging on previously agreed items, the same dynamic that resurfaced in recent days.
“They were playing games with us,” said one senior U.S. trade official of the talks in Washington three months ago. Mr. Kudlow told reporters at the time that Mr. Lighthizer “read them the riot act.”
“The more heated moments have been in situations where we thought we had something and suddenly there was some backsliding,” said one person involved in the discussions on the U.S. side.
“We’ve expressed some pretty serious frustration at times,” this person said. “It’s been a necessary ingredient to success. You can be nice to someone, but sometimes you need to say ‘stop screwing me.’ ”
In early April, Mr. Mnuchin announced that negotiators had agreed on a mechanism for enforcing the terms of their potential trade deal, suggesting one of the key stumbling blocks toward an accord had been cleared, although Beijing never agreed that the issue had been settled.
Then, before traveling to Beijing for another round of talks, Mr. Mnuchin said that the trade talks were “getting close to the final round of concluding issues.” After, as he and Mr. Lighthizer prepared to board the jet home, he tweeted on May 1 that the meetings had been “productive.” Mr. Lighthizer shared that assessment, even though he and Mr. Mnuchin have often held differing views on China, according to people tracking the talks.
Mr. Lighthizer is a longtime China hawk who has taken the line that the U.S. needs to stand firm in pushing for better access for U.S. companies in China and in confronting the Chinese over practices such as the theft of intellectual property. People close to Mr. Mnuchin say he shares the goal of changing the rules of trade but is concerned about potential fallout on financial markets from the lingering uncertainty.
“We were in the process of planning for a signing summit with President Trump and President Xi upon the completion of this agreement,” Mr. Mnuchin later told reporters. One of the issues was where to hold the celebratory moment: Washington or Mr. Trump’s golf estates in Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, or Bedminster, N.J., say Trump aides.
Several current and former White House officials say they viewed Mr. Mnuchin’s statements as overly optimistic, irking Mr. Trump as well as many staffers at the White House and USTR, who preferred to maintain pressure on China until “after the ink is dry,” in the words of one White House official. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Skepticism grew in some U.S. quarters when China, in the U.S. view, started to renege on agreed-upon provisions in the days before last week’s talks began. Mr. Lighthizer in particular saw China “moving the goal posts” on certain details just as an agreement appeared within reach, according to White House officials.
Chinese negotiators let their U.S. counterparts know that they had serious reservations with the text. The Chinese were no longer willing to commit to changing laws covering intellectual property, forced technology transfer, subsidies and other issues at the heart of the dispute. They also objected to publication of all the details of the text, preferring a summary.
To the Chinese, this was a matter of honor: The U.S. should trust Beijing to make the changes they said they would make, even if that meant changing regulations rather than laws. Besides, the U.S. was being unfair in refusing, upon the signing of a deal, to remove tariffs that had been assessed in the yearlong fight, the Chinese believed.
“There is a real desire on our end to keep the tariffs on,” one White House official said. “That is a sticking point.”
Another major area of conflict has been how to deal with what the U.S. sees as Chinese recalcitrance on clamping down on the theft of U.S. intellectual property, said people briefed on the talks. The U.S. initially had sought to appeal to Mr. Xi’s nationalistic tendencies, arguing that if China was as great as Mr. Xi portrayed it, why would it need to steal U.S. technology?
The Trump administration believed it had an agreement that included a satisfactory level of enforcement should the Chinese record not improve. “Not tiger teeth, but real enough to make a deal,” one of the people tracking the talks said.
Then Chinese officials said enforcement procedures would need to go through Chinese law-enforcement channels and couldn’t be guaranteed at the negotiating table, this person said, which U.S. officials didn’t view as a credible option.
In Beijing, as the talks approached, Chinese officials believed they had some leverage, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported, because they saw Mr. Trump’s public criticism of the Federal Reserve and his desire for lower interest rates as a sign that he was worried about the future course of the U.S. economy and therefore may be more eager to do a deal. It was a miscalculation on their part; Mr. Trump has long called for low borrowing costs and also has repeatedly cited the enduring strength of the U.S. economy.
President Xi also was encouraged by a pickup in Chinese growth—the result of Beijing’s aggressive stimulus policies—and by a perception that the American economy is about to enter a down cycle. “Time is on our side,” said a senior official in Beijing. On the home front, Mr. Xi is wary of a potential political backlash as a result of any perception that he is conceding too much to Washington.
Chinese officials were therefore caught off guard, three days before the Washington talks were scheduled, when Mr. Trump said on Twitter he would increase tariffs, to 25% from 10%, on the $200 billion in Chinese goods because he saw the Chinese backtracking—the original threat he had set for a March 1 deadline.
He also said he would start the legal proceedings necessary to add tariffs to almost everything else the Chinese sold in the U.S., even if it meant the Chinese canceled their Washington visit.
A similar move by Mr. Trump in September—when he first went ahead with the tariffs on $200 billion in goods—had led to a cancellation of talks and put negotiations in a deep freeze until the dinner Dec. 1 in Buenos Aires.
Shortly after Mr. Trump’s announcement of the tariff increase, Beijing’s trade negotiators, who had booked Air China tickets to Washington, received an urgent order: Stay put until further notice. “Looks like we’re not going,” one of them said early Monday morning.
Up until that moment, China’s leadership had expected the trip to bring months of negotiations to a close, according to Chinese officials close to the negotiation process, given that Chinese diplomats were already in discussion with their American counterparts about a possible summit between Messrs. Xi and Trump to finalize a trade agreement.
Now, the pressing question for Beijing became: Should it pull out of the planned talks to adhere to its longstanding public position that China doesn’t negotiate under threat? Or should China bite the bullet and still send the delegation to avoid a complete collapse of negotiations?
The Chinese side wanted more information from Washington before making the decision. But senior officials knew news of Mr. Trump’s tweets would inevitably cause market anxiety. The first order of business Monday morning: China’s central bank sped up a plan to release more funds for banks, a stimulus measure aimed at calming jittery investors and businesses.
State-backed funds were also instructed to buy what was necessary to prevent a free fall of shares. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman released a statement at Monday’s regular press briefing that said only that the Chinese delegation was “preparing to travel to the U.S.” The spokesman didn’t say when the team would depart or give additional details.
On Tuesday morning, a group of officials at the vice minister level, including Liao Min, a trusted aide to Mr. Liu and a vice Finance Minister, and Wang Shouwen, a vice Commerce Minister, reached the conclusion the talks should proceed, a position endorsed by Mr. Xi though expectations of a positive result had fallen sharply.
The U.S. side made some calls that turned off the Chinese, too. By insisting that it wouldn’t remove any tariffs upon closing a deal, the U.S. gave Beijing little incentive to accept tough conditions. The U.S. position remained firm: no tariff removal until Beijing showed it would carry through on the commitments it made under the deal. On top of that, the U.S. wanted China to pledge not to retaliate if the U.S. were to reimpose tariffs if it found China in violation of some provisions.
Mr. Trump on Thursday let it be known he didn’t want the U.S. to appear soft on China, according to one person briefed on the matter.
The two days of negotiations went amicably nonetheless, according to people tracking the talks. Messrs Lighthizer and Mnuchin, who both were in the discussions, took Mr. Liu to a working dinner at the Metropolitan Club, a ritzy private club near the U.S. Trade Representative’s headquarters that is a Lighthizer favorite. Mr. Liu continued the talks on Friday despite the U.S. implementing the higher tariffs very early Friday morning.
Later that morning, Mr. Lighthizer greeted the Chinese envoy at the door of the USTR office—a gesture he rarely makes, but one which he could be sure would be captured by photographers and camera crews waiting outside.
By then, though, the U.S. team went into the talks not expecting to do a deal, figuring they would have a “non-meeting,” according to one person briefed on the discussions. U.S. officials at least wanted to make sure they didn’t leave with a complete break. The goal of the meeting was to be able to say the U.S. negotiators were still trying, this person said.
In an interview with Chinese media Friday, Mr. Liu disputed U.S. accounts that China reneged on commitments it had already made as part of the trade talks. “We are very clear that we cannot make concessions on matters of principle,” Mr. Liu said. “We hope our U.S. colleagues understand this.”
In a commentary Saturday, the official People’s Daily said the text of any trade agreement “must be balanced and expressed in a way that is acceptable to the Chinese people and does not undermine the country’s sovereignty and dignity.”
With a deal now in limbo, with no formal plan to resume, the key to future developments may be in the hands of Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi. Each of the leaders has emphasized their personal rapport through the dispute. Mr. Xi sent Mr. Trump a letter as last week’s talks began, saying, according to Mr. Trump, “Let’s work together, let’s see if we can get something done.”
Mr. Trump after the talks ended Friday said on Twitter: “The relationship between President Xi and myself remains a very strong one, and conversations into the future will continue.” He added tariffs “may or may not be removed depending on what happens with respect to future negotiations!”
“At this point, it seems that the only way to break the impasse is through direct dialogue between the two leaders,” said one Beijing official.
The two leaders are expected to meet at the G-20 meeting at the end of June, if they don’t meet earlier. After Mr. Liu jetted off back to Beijing, Mr. Lighthizer released a statement saying that on Monday USTR would “begin the process of raising tariffs on essentially all remaining imports from China.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/frustration-miscalculation-inside-the-u-s-china-trade-impasse-11557692301?mod=hp_lead_pos3
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China Retaliates Against the U.S. With Its Own Higher Tariffs
May 13, 2019 | New York Times
By Keith Bradsher
China moved to retaliate against the United States, announcing plans on Monday to raise tariffs on a wide range of American goods.
The decision, which follows President Trump’s increase in tariffs on Chinese goods last Friday, escalates the pressure in the ongoing trade war.
Trade talks between the two sides broke down last week without a deal, tensions that have rippled through the markets and the economy. American stocks plunged on Monday, extending the recent losses.
Beijing’s retaliation comes at a time when many in China feel that the United States has behaved highhandedly in threatening tariffs. “Mutual trust and respect are of the essence in handling the negotiations,” said Zhu Ning, a Tsinghua University economics professor.
It isn’t clear whether China’s retaliation could end there. In the past, China has slowed imports at customs and launched investigations into foreign companies during times of tension.
Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Chinese Communist Party, tweeted on Monday evening that he was expecting broader retaliation, including halting purchases of American agricultural and energy products and Boeing aircraft or selling some of China’s large holdings of Treasuries. That latter threat once unnerved markets but has since lost some of its edge, as China has been trying to diversify where it parks its money for years and had to spend some of its huge hoard of foreign currency reserves three years ago to stem a decline in its currency.
China’s finance ministry announced on Monday evening that it was raising tariffs on a wide range of American goods to 20 percent or 25 percent from 10 percent. But the ministry delayed implementation until June 1.
The delay will allow time for negotiators to make one last push for a deal. It roughly matches one that the Trump administration put on its own tariff increase.
President Trump on Friday raised tariffs on $200 billion a year worth of Chinese goods, particularly auto parts, to 25 percent from 10 percent. He had already imposed 25 percent tariffs last summer on another $50 billion a year of Chinese goods, including a wide range of products that his administration views as strategic, from cars to aircraft parts and nuclear reactor components.
The Trump administration has more tariffs planned. The Office of the United States Trade Representative has said that on Monday, it will issue for public comment at Mr. Trump’s direction a proposal to raise tariffs on “essentially all remaining imports from China, which are valued at approximately $300 billion.”
Because China’s entire imports from the United States are considerably less than $200 billion, it has not had the option of matching the United States dollar for dollar. Last September, China had matched President Trump’s 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion a year in goods with its own tariffs of 5 percent to 10 percent on $60 billion a year in American goods.
On Monday, China’s ministry of finance raised those tariffs by introducing four new categories for the $60 billion in goods. The tariffs on those four categories are 25 percent, 20 percent, 10 percent and 5 percent.
The finance ministry did not specify the dollar value of goods in each of the four categories. But the largest number of tariff codes in the $60 billion was assigned to the 25 percent category, suggesting that China was raising the tariffs on many imports to that level.
China’s tariff increases on Monday included raising the tariff on liquefied natural gas imports from the United States to 25 percent from 10 percent. That will hurt Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, three states with a lot of Trump supporters.
By contrast, China left unchanged at 5 percent its tariffs on about a tenth of the product categories in the $60 billion. These included its tariffs on imports of American tires, light bulbs and certain paper products.
Neither the American tariffs nor China’s retaliation will go into effect right away. Despite the rising tensions, the Trump administration structured its tariff increase on Friday so that it won’t take effect for a few weeks, giving both sides a bit more room to reach a deal. In a departure from the usual practice of assessing tariffs on goods as they reach American seaports and airports, the Trump administration declared that the increased tariffs on $200 billion a year in goods would be applied only to shipments that left China from Friday onward.
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Goods that travel by sea take two to four weeks to reach the United States from China, depending mainly on whether the ship sails to the East or West Coast and how fast the ship travels. That means the effect won’t be felt for a few weeks.
Chris Rogers, a trade analyst at Panjiva, a trade data firm, said that roughly 90 percent of all American imports from China come by sea. An even higher proportion of the $200 billion in goods being hit by the latest tariff increase is likely to come by sea, he said, because the higher tariffs do not cover big categories like iPhones that come to the United States almost entirely by air.
There is also a practical reason for the Trump administration not to have imposed the tariff increase right away: Updating customs procedures can be slow. The Trump administration “wanted to start the clock but be realistic about implementation,” said James Green, the top trade official at the United States embassy in Beijing until August and now a senior adviser at McLarty Associates, a Washington consulting firm.
The question now is whether another round of tit-for-tat tariff increases portends an economic struggle between the United States and China that could last for many years. Since President Trump was elected, the two sides have repeatedly seemed close to a deal only for it to fall apart. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross seemed to have the outlines of a deal in 2017. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin talked of a deal being at hand a year ago.
President Trump himself was upbeat about the prospects for a deal last month. Chinese officials have been consistently encouraging about progress toward a deal for the past two years, even though a hardening of China’s stance last week appears to have contributed to Mr. Trump’s decision this week to raise tariffs.
Last week’s round of talks in Washington is the 11th time that senior Chinese and American officials have met to discuss trade since President Trump took office. “What should be concerning to markets is how close both sides have gotten to a deal before one side backs off,” something that has happened again and again, said Hannah Anderson, a global markets strategist in the Hong Kong office of J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
Global markets fell on Monday, and the renminbi, China’s currency, also fell half a percent against the dollar. Goldman Sachs revised its forecast for the currency’s value, to 6.95 to the dollar three months from now, instead of the 6.65 it had been expecting.
Falls in the Chinese currency make Chinese goods more competitive in foreign markets, including Europe’s as well as the United States. But a weakening renminbi also creates an incentive for Chinese companies and households to try to evade China’s controls on international money movements and shift large sums out of the country, which could undermine the stability of China’s financial system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/business/trump-trade-china.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
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The Trump Administration's Jekyll and Hyde Relationship With Science
May 13, 2019 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Stuart Shapiro
In a little-noticed memo, several weeks ago, the Office of Management and Budget modified its guidelines on the Information Quality Act (IQA). These modifications increase the responsibilities of agencies to carefully respond when a member of the public submits a complaint about information that the agency has made public. The revised guidelines are similar to an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency issued in April 2018, to “strengthen science used in EPA regulations.”
At the same time that the Trump administration is purporting to strengthen science, it is being regularly criticized for ignoring science and economics in many of its individual policy initiatives. The administration has worked to eliminate information on climate change from its websites. Its economic analysis of its regulations have been regularly criticized. Just last week reports surfaced regarding the EPA ignoring scientists when it issued new regulations on asbestos exposure.
How can we reconcile the Trump administration’s measures that they claim will strengthen the use of science with their disregard for scientific rigor in so many individual policy decisions? It would be easy to shout “hypocrisy” from the rooftops, but the reality is that it is more complicated (not to say that the hypocrisy argument is unwarranted).
When the administration is issuing a memo with general application, such as the one involving the Information Quality Act, it is acknowledging that eventually a different administration will be in power. A future Democratic administration will likely return to the norm of issuing regulations to protect public health and the environment.
By requiring agencies to pay more attention to complaints about the information supporting these regulations, the memo gives those who oppose such future regulations more tools to fight them. It simultaneously raises the cost of writing regulations for future agencies.
Why doesn’t the administration worry that these tools will be used against the deregulatory efforts that rely upon shoddy science that it has engaged in? Well so far, the use of such tools in this manner has been uncommon. The IQA guidelines have been in place since 2002. While some organizations such as Democracy Forward and the National Employment Law Project have used the IQA to challenge Trump administration initiatives, these challenges have been few and far between.
Groups that support regulation have likely been reluctant to use the IQA because they feel that doing so will give legitimacy to a tool that they fear will eventually be used against regulation. But opponents of regulatory initiatives under a future administration will use these tools regardless of any perceived legitimacy. The Trump administration has provided a target rich environment in terms of relying upon low quality information. Those opposed to these deregulatory initiatives should be taking advantage of any tools that allow them to highlight the unsound science upon which many regulatory repeals rest.
A generation ago, cost-benefit analysis was seen as something that was inevitably going to be used to support deregulation. But as decades have shown, sound economics supports regulatory initiatives at least as often as it casts doubt upon them. As a result, regulatory proponents have begun to use cost-benefit analysis as a tool against deregulation.
Ignoring tools like the IQA allows the Trump administration to claim to be pro-science and pro-analysis even while ignoring — or using low quality — science and economics on individual decisions. The Information Quality Act can be used the same way that cost-benefit analysis has been used. If the Trump Administration argues that they want to favor sound science, then make them put their money where their mouth is.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/443368-the-trump-administrations-jekyll-and-hyde-relationship-with
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The National Academies Illustrates the More Nuanced Value of Transparency in Science
May 13, 2019 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Genna Reed
Ever think about reproducibility in science? Turns out you’re not alone! The National Academies of Science (NAS) just spent a year and a half studying the status quo and have released some important findings. An NAS committee released a report this week that EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Department of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and OMB Acting Director Russell Vought should really read, titled Reproducibility and Replicability in Science. The group of experts was charged with answering questions about reproducibility and replicability, mandated by the 2017 American Innovation and Competitiveness Act. There are two key takeaways that are incredibly important for federal agency heads to understand as they are issuing sweeping policies that include language about these scientific concepts under the guise of transparency.
Reproducibility and replicability are important but not the be-all end-all of good science
The NAS committee was charged with defining reproducibility and replicability across scientific fields. Reproducibility is obtaining consistent results using the same input data, computational steps, methods, and code, and conditions of analysis. Replicability is obtaining consistent results across studies aimed at answering the same scientific question, each of which has obtained its own data. While the report acknowledges that reproducible and replicable studies help to generate reliable knowledge, it also is very clear throughout that these standards can be features of a scientifically rigorous study, but are not necessarily essential. The committee writes, “A predominant focus on the replicability of individual studies is an inefficient way to assure the reliability of scientific knowledge. Rather, reviews of cumulative evidence on a subject, to assess both the overall effect size and generalizability, is often a more useful way to gain confidence in the state of scientific knowledge.” There are many reasons why a study might not be able to be reproduced or replicated, not the least of which to protect the privacy, trade secrets, intellectual property and other confidentiality concerns associated with the underlying data. Challenges also arise when studying environmental hazards. We must use observational data for studies of air and water pollution and it is often not possible or ethical to recreate the conditions under which people were exposed to a contaminant.
As my colleague, Andrew Rosenberg, explained in a recent blog:
“Maybe we all learned that doing an experiment in a lab many times over can give you confidence in the results and that is the “scientific method.” Made sense in grade school. But lots and lots of critical scientific information and even analyses are not “reproducible” in this sense. Take, for example, the impact of a toxic pollutant on a local community. Should we release it again to see if it is really harmful? Or the study of a natural disaster? Should we wait for it to happen again to reproduce the results? The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative illustrated the many real-world examples of scientific studies that are neither feasible nor ethical to reproduce.”
In the EPA’s proposed restricted science rule issued last April, EPA argues that part of the reason for the policy is to allow regulators to better determine that key findings are “valid and credible.” It claims that the benchmark upon which validation and credibility are measured is reproducibility and replication of studies. But as EPA fails to understand and the NAS committee rightfully points out, “reproducibility and replicability are not, in and of themselves, the end goals of science, nor are they the only way in which scientists gain confidence in new discoveries.” The report explains that policy decisions should be based on the body of evidence, rather than any one study (replicable or not), and likewise, that one study should not be used to refute evidence backed by a large body of research. Further, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, whereby large bodies of evidence are evaluated, are an important method of increasing confidence of scientific results. The EPA and other agencies should have the flexibility to use their own criteria to judge the rigor and validity of the science informing rules as applicable, and should not rely on reproducibility and replicability as the principal criteria of scientific credibility.
Challenges of transparency and reproducibility in science are best handled within the research community, not the White House or EPA
Improvements in transparency can be and are being made by researchers, journals, funders, and academic institutions and the report gives many neat examples of ongoing efforts. It certainly is not one agency’s job to solve issues around science transparency. Indeed, they couldn’t do this even if they tried. The recommendations of the report are aimed at scientific institutions to work on educating researchers and ensure best practices in recordkeeping and transparency that may lead more reproducible and replicable studies. Nowhere does it suggest that federal agencies that are users of such science should be involved in deciding how transparent authors must be. The scientific community needs to drive the bus. End users of scientific information are not in a position to address challenges in the scientific community at large, especially considering the lack of infrastructure and resources needed to ensure privacy protections for sensitive data within agency rulemaking. Instead of making sweeping transparency requirements that would limit the government’s ability to use the best science, the report recommends that funding agencies invest in the research and development of open-source tools and related trainings for researchers so that transparency is fostered at the beginning of the scientific process instead of being used as an opportunity to exclude crucial public health studies that have already been conducted.
No crisis of reproducibility, no time for complacency
During the report release webinar, the study authors summarized their findings by saying that there wasn’t a crisis of reproducibility, nor was it a time to be complacent about issues related to transparency in science. This is a fair assessment of the situation and one that should be reexamined by the EPA as it reviews the 590,000 public comments it received on its restricted science proposal. There are absolutely ways we can use technology to improve recordkeeping and transparency throughout the scientific process so that researchers can better build on one another’s findings and advance knowledge. Smart minds at NAS and elsewhere are already working on this. The committee report highlights some of the ways this is happening thanks to the leadership of academic institutions, funders, and journals. Government has a role to play in helping to fund the infrastructure that will foster more open and accessible science and arm researchers with the tools to abide by best practices. The EPA, DOI, and OMB should listen to the scientific community and learn how best to accomplish that task. There is absolutely no role for the White House or federal agencies like the EPA to issue sweeping, prescriptive rules that limit the way that science is used to inform regulations.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/the-national-academies-illustrates-the-more-nuanced-value-of-transparency-in-science
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TSCA Inventory: Inactive Designations Take Effect 5 August
May 13, 2019 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has announced that the TSCA inventory ‘inactive’ substance designations will take effect from 5 August.
Beginning on that date, a substance listed on the inventory as 'inactive' will need to be notified through a Notice of Activity (NOA) Form B before a company can manufacture, import or process it for a non-exempt purpose.
The agency announced the effective date in a pre-publication Federal Register notice, emailed to stakeholders on 9 May. In it, the agency indicated the availability of a memorandum signed by Administrator Andrew Wheeler on 6 May officially beginning the 90-day period between the identification of inactive substances and their designation as such.
The agency said this announcement is a "companion" to the first version of the TSCA inventory published with active and inactive designations. Released on 19 February, the updated inventory is the result of the TSCA inventory notification (inventory reset) reporting exercise that ended in October 2018.
The updated inventory identifies as inactive 45,573 (53%) of the 86,228 chemicals on the TSCA inventory.
https://chemicalwatch.com/77508/tsca-inventory-inactive-designations-take-effect-5-august
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Council Questions Bill To Ban Chemicals
May 13, 2019 | The Post-Journal
By John Whittaker
A bill that is tucked into a package of legislation the state Assembly leadership is calling an Earth Day commemoration is drawing the ire of the Business Council of New York State.
The legislation, S.501-B/A.6296-A, is sponsored by Senator Todd Kaminsky, D-Long Island, and Assemblyman Steve Englebright, D-Long Island, and is described as a bill to regulate toxic chemicals in children’s products, requiring notification to consumers about children’s products containing chemicals of concern and dangerous chemicals, as well as banning children’s products containing dangerous chemicals like organohalogen flame retardants, tris and asbestos. The measure would go into effect March 1, 2020, and manufacturers and retailers would have until Jan. 1, 2023, to either remove the dangerous chemicals from the toys and other children’s products or remove them from the New York market.
Assemblyman Joseph Giglio, R-Gowanda, voted against the legislation when it went before the Assembly’s Codes Committee, but the bill has passed the Environmental Committee, Codes Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. The bill has also been approved by the state Senate, meaning it will be sent to Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his signature.
The legislation includes a list of roughly 100 chemicals deemed to be dangerous to children. The bill regulates chemicals in products marketed to children under the age of 12 that include toys, car seats, supplies, personal care products, sucking/teething items, jewelry, bedding, furniture, and clothes. The new regulations only apply to new products, not toys or goods sold secondhand.
“Currently, New York identifies or prohibits the use of dangerous chemicals on a chemical by chemical basis,” Englebright wrote in the legislation’s justification memo. “This approach is especially problematic for children’s products since children are often more vulnerable to smaller amounts of chemicals. Several other states, including Washington, California, and Maine have adopted more comprehensive chemical policies. This legislation is modeled after those states and is intended to prevent the use of dangerous chemicals and ensure the use of safer chemical alternatives in children’s products.”
If the measure is signed into law, toys containing certain materials such as toxic flame retardants would be banned outright beginning in 2023.
State regulators would be tasked with compiling a list of potentially harmful chemicals and maintaining public records about the presence of those materials in toys. Supporters said the measure will protect children from the chemicals. They noted that a handful of states, including California, already have similar laws on the books.
“There’s well-documented evidence that these chemicals are harmful to children,” said Sen. Todd Kaminsky, D-Long Island, who is the sponsor of the legislation, known as the Child Safe Products Act. “I have a 10-month-old child. I watch him put everything he can get his hands on in his mouth.”
Business Council officials say the legislation isn’t quite that simple, however, noting the Washington legislation Englebright mentions has cost businesses up to $27.6 million and has a more limited scope than the New York legislation. Maine’s Kids Product Safety Act, meanwhile, was such a problem that it was eventually rewritten by the Maine state legislature.
Specifically, council officials say the New York law’s definition of a children’s product is overly broad and will likely impact entire manufacturing, business and retail sectors that could have discontinue commonly used products; does not include a de minimis concentration exemption for items of high concern; and does not include regulatory bodies to consider exemptions for products where there is no risk of exposure to harmful products because there is no “pathway to exposure.”
Business Council officials suggest relying on the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act which was signed into law by President Barack Obama. The federal law has been passed since initial versions of the New York law were proposed years ago in the state Legislature.
“The Business Council is concerned with any legislation that calls for state specific chemical bans and restrictions,” the council wrote in a legislative memo opposing the chemical restriction legislation. “This bill will create uncertainty for New York’s manufacturers who will not know from year to year which chemicals will make the priority list for bans until the list is made public. Chemical regulation in particular is better handled on a national level, rather than having different states with varying standards for chemical and product safety. This in turn will further put New York manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage with those in other states and discourage new businesses from relocating to or expanding in New York.”
Other pieces of legislation in the package announced by the Assembly include:
¯ An amendment to the state Constitution which would ensure clean water and air are treated as fundamental rights for New Yorkers, protecting both the environment and public health (A.2064, Englebright).
¯ Another bill would raise water-efficiency standards for plumbing fixtures (A.2286, Hunter)
¯ A bill that would require the Department of Environmental Conservation to publish a list every two years of geographic areas in the state that are adversely affected by existing environmental hazards (A.1779, Peoples-Stokes).
¯ Legislation banning the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos. There has been extensive scientific research into chlorpyrifos, which is toxic to the human brain and nervous system, and is especially dangerous for children, infants and women who are pregnant (A.2477-B, Englebright).
¯ Reduce the amount of mercury in light bulbs (A.2501-A, Englebright).
¯ Give the DEC commissioner the ability to protect species by designating animals, like the giraffe, as vulnerable species and banning the sale of items made in part or in whole from the such species (A.6600, Englebright).
¯ Commemorate April 22, 2019, as the 49th anniversary of Earth Day (K.326, Griffin).
¯ Recognizes June 8, 2019, as Dragonfly Day in New York state (K.318, Thiele).
“Our Earth Day agenda will provide the public with the opportunity to pass a constitutional amendment safeguarding clean air and water, and a healthful environment. Other bills will keep dangerous pollutants and chemicals away from children and out of our environment,” Englebright said. “I am proud that today’s legislation will protect our health, reduce the waste of clean water and help to shield vulnerable species such as giraffes from extinction.”
http://www.post-journal.com/news/page-one/2019/05/council-questions-bill-to-ban-chemicals/
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Change to PFAs Standard Stokes Dissent Within Alaska Agency
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
A decision by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to redefine levels of certain chemicals considered safe in drinking water has caused dissent within the agency.
Sally Schlichting, who works in the agency's Contaminated Sites Program, wrote in an internal memo obtained by CoastAlaska that the best way to protect residents is to not roll back standards.
The department's commissioner, Jason Brune, said Schlichting is entitled to her opinion but doesn't speak for the department or Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy's administration.
Brune said the department deferred to EPA's lifetime health advisory level for drinking water. He said that science on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is evolving and that EPA is working on an updated standard for states to follow.
"We will be closely monitoring the EPA's progress on this issue and the emerging science, and if necessary we will adjust our course," he said.
According to EPA, certain PFAS can accumulate and remain in the body for long periods. "There is evidence that exposure to PFAS can lead to adverse health outcomes in humans," according to EPA.
Schlichting, in her memo, said other states are setting levels for one or more PFAS that are "significantly more stringent" than EPA's lifetime health advisory level.
The shift won't affect the thousands of households whose wells have elevated PFAS levels and that get alternative water supplies from the state, reports CoastAlaska. But the department plans to use the less-stringent standards in the future before providing supplemental water.
Democratic state Rep. Geran Tarr said Schlichting's memo "tells me that the administration ignored the recommendations of the scientists at their department."
Much of the contamination discovered last year was in wells around Fairbanks, Bristol Bay and Gustavus.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/05/13/stories/1060326007
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Pharmacia May Pursue Insurers for PCB ‘Food Chain’ Claims
May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Pharmacia LLC may proceed with insurance coverage claims stemming from hundreds of cancer suits alleging exposure to PCBs in food, the Eastern District of Texas said.
Under a 1995 insurance settlement, Monsanto Co., the corporate predecessor of Pharmacia, released its coverage for litigation over polychlorinated biphenyls, with an exception for suits alleging exposure through the end use of a product.
Pharmacia presented enough evidence that at least some of the 740 underlying suits would fall under the carve out in the settlement to survive summary judgment, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas said May 10.
The underlying claims, filed by plaintiffs suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, allege Pharmacia manufactured and sold PCBs to manufacturers of electrical equipment and other products decades ago, which ultimately got into the environment and food supply.
The court rejected the insurers’ argument that the food chain allegations don’t fall under the carve out because the product isn’t being put to its end use.
The insurers include London and Edinburgh Insurance Co. Ltd., Grupo De Inversiones Suramericana S.A., Unionamerica Insurance Co., Tenecom Ltd., and Stronghold Insurance Co. Ltd.
Judge Robert W. Schroeder III issued the opinion.
Perkins Coie LLP and Beck Redden LLP represented Pharmacia.
Siebman Burg Phillips & Smith LLP, Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss PLLC, and Hinkhouse Williams Walsh LLP represent the insurers.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/pharmacia-may-pursue-insurers-for-pcb-food-chain-claims
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News Bayer Will Hire Firm to Probe Possible Spying by Monsanto (3)
May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Martin Sobczyk and Tim Loh
Bayer AG said it will appoint an external law firm to investigate a Monsanto project that French media said was designed to suppress criticism and lobby for approval of pesticides, including the controversial Roundup weedkiller.
It’s “very probable” that Monsanto engaged in similar behavior in other European countries, Matthias Berninger, Bayer’s head of public affairs and sustainability, said on a call with reporters Monday. Monsanto in 2016 kept secret scores on more than 200 politicians, journalists and agricultural leaders, Le Monde reported. A Paris prosecutor on Friday opened a preliminary inquiry into the file, whose existence was first reported by Le Monde and the France2 channel.
Bayer is facing a mountain of challenges as it integrates the U.S. agriculture giant that it bought last June for $63 billion. The German company has lost two costly U.S. court cases and faces many more from people claiming that Monsanto’s top-selling weedkiller, Roundup, caused cancer. Fears of more damage have wiped about 35 billion euros ($39 billion) off the company’s market value and galvanized shareholders -- many of whom were opposed to the takeover initially -- to issue a stinging rebuke of Bayer’s leadership.
While Bayer has no indication that Monsanto broke laws while compiling information on people it deemed supportive or critical to its operations, that doesn’t mean its behavior conformed to ethical principles or other regulations, the company said. The practice “is not the way Bayer seeks dialogue with society and stakeholders,” it said in a statement Sunday. “We apologize for this behavior.”
Bayer is using outside lawyers because it doesn’t want access to the information that Monsanto compiled, Berninger said. It’s in talks with potential firms in the U.S. and will announce its selection in coming days. The firm will be charged with, among other things, figuring out if information was collected in an “inappropriate or even illegal” manner, Berninger said.
The program appears to fit with a pattern of behavior from Monsanto’s past that Berninger likened to a soccer player taking aim at an opponent’s body, rather than at the ball itself. “That’s absolutely unacceptable and under my leadership won’t be tolerated,” he said.
Bayer will fully support the prosecutor’s office in France in its investigation, and the outside law firm Bayer hires will inform people who were on the lists about the information and how it was collected.
Bayer also said it suspended cooperation with the external service providers involved. The Monsanto manager in charge of the project left the company shortly after Bayer acquired it, it said.
The shares fell as much as 2.6% in Frankfurt and are down 44% in the past year.
Bayer faces some 13,400 suits from people who claim their cancers are related to Roundup. The German company has insisted the weedkiller is safe to use.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/bayer-will-hire-firm-to-probe-possible-spying-by-monsanto-3
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Bill Berry: We Should Be Cautious of Glyphosate Use
May 13, 2019 | The Cap Times
By Bill Berry
“Is Roundup the new DDT?”
That question, posed by a member of a Wisconsin lakes group a couple years ago, stopped me in my tracks. It came during a presentation I made about banning DDT and how Wisconsin citizens led the way. Unfortunately, there are some scary parallels between the two. Roundup is the trade name for the widely used herbicide glyphosate.
Almost 50 years to the day after a Wisconsin administrative hearing would lead to a national ban on DDT, pesticide regulation in the U.S. is better. Right? Not necessarily. We may do better in some areas, but we use more pesticides today than ever, and are likely to use more in the future thanks to weed resistance. We rely heavily on industry safety studies, and we fail to assess an array of other factors, such as how a chemical interacts with other compounds and how that affects human health and the environment. Even after we determine chemicals may cause cancer or other major health concerns, U.S. regulators often approve them. That’s prohibited in many European countries. And right now, we have a president and an Environmental Protection Agency that make a mockery of the whole regulatory process.
As for that question, I asked Craig Cox, a friend and a longtime researcher with the Environmental Working Group. His answer: “Glyphosate is similar to DDT in the sense that it is everywhere. If you look, you find it. Not sure it’s as dangerous as DDT, but…”
Indeed, glyphosate is ubiquitous, despite early assertions by its manufacturer, Monsanto (since merged with pharmaceutical giant Bayer), that there was no appreciable carryover. Today, 45 years after it was introduced for use on farm fields, lawns and gardens, residues are found in food, air, water and soil samples, and in the bodies of people who never used the chemical. That persistence is what caused DDT to be such an ecological disaster and ultimately was a big factor in its banning.
But glyphosate is safer, right? Actually, it may be more dangerous. Monsanto was aware of, but didn’t warn consumers about tests showing how easily glyphosate is absorbed into human skin. And a growing body of research links glyphosate to cancer in humans. The EPA and Monsanto have denied the connection, but huge product liability trials in California led to large damage awards after juries found the pesticide contributed to cancer. The EPA and Monsanto continue to deny the link, but the World Health Organization says otherwise, calling glyphosate “probably carcinogenic.” More than 13,000 plaintiffs in pending U.S. court proceedings claim the same. By the way, DDT’s manufacturer took the same tack 50 years ago, denying science that showed its immense impacts on the environment.Cap Times Opinion email signupSIGN UP!* I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Court proceedings are but one battlefield in this modern-day clash. Environmental challenges 50 years ago led to a much larger federal role, including creation of the EPA. Today, with federal agencies and politicians failing, states and localities have stepped up. Increasingly, states are taking steps to ban dangerous chemicals. California and Hawaii are instituting bans on the pesticide chlorpyrifos, linked to brain damage in children. In New York, the city council is considering a ban on the use of glyphosate and other pesticides in parks and other public spaces. In Wisconsin, some local communities are taking steps toward ordinances protecting water supplies. Keep an eye on this trend. Meanwhile, if you’re going to use glyphosate, some good advice: Use protective clothing. Better yet, especially in residential settings, don’t use it.
https://madison.com/ct/opinion/column/bill-berry-we-should-be-cautious-of-glyphosate-use/article_0645e080-28ca-5376-be48-ae37991d1567.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Material Insights: ExxonMobil Plans $2 Billion Expansion in Texas (Video)
May 13, 2019 | Plastics News
By Don Leopp
The American Chemistry Council warns against trade escalations, ExxonMobil plans capacity expansions for elastomers and specialty olefins, and an United Nations meeting decided to include plastic waste in a treaty governing trade in hazardous waste.
https://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20190513/MULTIMEDIA01/190519986/material-insights-exxonmobil-plans-2-billion-expansion-in-texas
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Local Control in the US Gaining Steam … Again?
May 13, 2019 | National Law Review
By Darin J. Smith
On Tuesday, April 16, 2019, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed Senate Bill 19-181 (SB19-181) into law. SB19-181 was a controversial bill as it made its way through the Colorado Legislature, and it is now a controversial piece of legislation. Indeed, SB19-181 passed the Colorado Legislature strictly along party lines, and it has now pitted some local Colorado communities against the oil and gas industry.
What makes the new legislation so controversial is that it gives local Colorado governments express land use authority to regulate the siting of oil and gas locations and to regulate land use and surface impacts of oil and gas activities. This authority includes, specifically (and among other things), the ability to inspect oil and gas facilities, impose fines for leaks and spills, and impose fees on owners and operators to cover the costs of permitting, monitoring and inspection. These new authorities given to local Colorado governments represents a substantial enlargement of authority from the state of play that existed before SB19-181 passed, such that now local governments no longer need to wait for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to first identify specific areas for oil and gas extraction. According to its legislative declaration, the law is in the public interest to foster the development of oil and gas resources in a manner consistent with the protection of public health, safety and welfare, including protection of the environment and wildlife resources. As may be evident just from the brief description provided here, the law has been praised by environmentalists and local control advocates, who say it will protect Coloradans health and safety and the Colorado environment more generally, but criticized by industry, who say that it will stunt and/or significantly delay oil and gas development, exploration and production in the state.
What perhaps makes SB19-181 even more intriguing, however, is its place in the past, current and future efforts nationwide to push and pass local control over industry. One of the first such noteworthy efforts launched in 2014 in Denton, Texas. When oil and gas companies drilled more than 200 fracking sites in the relatively small Texas town, local residents rallied together in resistance. They obtained a sufficient number of signatures to put a fracking ban on the ballot, engaged in a spirited campaign to promote the ban and, ultimately, the ban passed with almost 60% of voters in favor. In early 2015, however, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that preempted the authority of local governments in Texas to regulate a host of energy activities, including fracking. Denton was then forced to repeal its fracking ban. (Interestingly, in 2013, the city of Longmont, Colorado embarked on a similar path to ban fracking within its city limits. With SB19-181, the Colorado Legislature has taken the opposite approach of the Texas Legislature.)
Other states have also been or are currently in the midst of their own local control battles. In 2018, voters in the Alaska general election voted down Ballot Measure 1, otherwise known as the “Stand for Salmon” initiative. The measure would have made local permitting processes more stringent for projects with greater potential impacts to salmon habitat, and it would have required state regulators to draft specific scientific standards defining salmon protection and salmon habitat. This year in Florida, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced proposed legislation that would permanently ban drilling off Florida’s Atlantic coast and request that the U.S. Coast Guard identify specific areas that are prone to oil spill risk. Finally, in Montana last year, a statewide grassroots group called “Stop I-186 to Protect Miners and Jobs” launched a campaign to halt a new bill that would have forced hard rock mines, in order to be permitted, to provide “clear and convincing evidence” that they would not require perpetual water treatment. Montana voters ultimately rejected the I-186 bill.
The past few years have seen many efforts to bolster local control over industry activities that affect the environment, safety and health. For the most part, these efforts, as robust and organized as they might have been, have also largely been defeated. Time will tell if Colorado’s passage and adoption of a sweeping local control bill over oil and gas activities will renew, revive and restore local control efforts elsewhere around the country.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/local-control-us-gaining-steam-again
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FERC to Hold Technical Conference on Grid Reliability June 27
May 13, 2019 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Cunningham
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission plans a technical conference on the reliability of bulk electric system on June 27.
The conference will examine trends and risks the North American Electric Reliability Corporation considers most significant challenges to reliability, issues posed by gas pipeline contingencies, and electromagnetic pulses. It also will focus on the impact of cloud-based services and virtualization.
Other topics include changes in communications, including 5G, which will help utilities to increase wireless coverage and the potential risks raised by the use of 5G, such as cybersecurity.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/ferc-to-hold-technical-conference-on-grid-reliability-june-27
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Barge Collision Spills Gasoline in Houston Ship Channel
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Multiple vessels collided in the Houston Ship Channel on Friday afternoon, spilling 9,000 barrels of a gasoline blend stock and forcing the partial closure of the commercial waterway.
A 755-foot tanker collided with a tugboat pushing two barges near Bayport, Texas, around 3:30 p.m. CDT, capsizing one of the barges and damaging another, authorities said. Crews are working to remove the gasoline product from the barges.
Each barge was carrying an estimated 25,000 barrels of reformate, which is colorless, flammable and toxic to touch, inhale or ingest.
Officials say air monitoring hasn't raised health concerns as the cleanup continues. Authorities said at a news conference yesterday that 2,700 air samples were tested and none have exceeded levels to cause concern.
Residents around the accident site have reported a gasoline smell.
The ship channel remains partially closed, and the cause of the collision is being investigated.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/05/13/stories/1060326009
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Houston Shipping Channel Ship Collision Cleanup Continues After Toxic Spill, Reports of Fish Kill
May 13, 2019 | The Weather Channel
By Jan Wesner Childs
The Houston Ship Channel was reopened to traffic Sunday after a collision involving a tanker, a tugboat and two barges dumped 9,000 barrels of a toxic chemical, but concerns linger over possible water contamination.
"We have received some reports of wildlife impacts," Craig Kartye of the Texas General Land Office's oil spill prevention program told the Houston Chronicle. "Specifically two dead seagulls located near the source of the incident, one dead raccoon in the city of Kemah and some dead fish at one spot along the west shoreline of Galveston Bay."
Kartye said wildlife rehabilitation teams were responding to the reports.
Galveston Bay Foundation President Bob Stokes told weather.com Monday that the dead fish washed up on property owned by the foundation.
“There were a lot of really small juvenile fish, maybe a thousand and then probably about 200 blue crab,” Stokes said.
The ship channel was closed Friday after a 755-foot tanker collided with a tugboat pushing two barges. Some 9,000 barrels of a gasoline blend was released into the water from one of the barges, KHOU reported.
One barge capsized and the other was damaged, leaking a gasoline product called reformate, a highly flammable chemical that is dangerous to marine life, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle. Officials said it could take at least two days to remove the hazardous materials from both incapacitated barges because their contents were still underwater.
Residents who live along the water were being advised not to fish or eat any shellfish. A smell of gasoline was also reported in the air over the weekend.
Jim Guidry, executive vice president of Kirby Inland Marine, which owns the barges, told the Chronicle that nearly 400 people were working over the weekend to mitigate impacts and clean up the spill. They deployed 3,800 feet of containment booms around the barges to contain the spill and an additional 12,000 feet to protect sensitive areas around the bay.
Kartye said water samples all came back showing no contamination.
"We've collected 2,700 samples, none of which exceeded the established action levels," he told the Chronicle.
Air samples were also collected. One was found to contain a volatile organic compound, but it did not show up again in subsequent tests, the Associated Press reported.
The Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident.
The spill was not the first at the port in recent years. A spill in March 2014 released 168,000 gallons of fuel oil, while another in March 2015 released 88,000 gallons of a gasoline additive, according to the Chronicle.
Chemicals released into the air during a fire at a chemical plant along the channel in March also caused concern.
The 50-mile-long Houston Ship Channel is one of the busiest ports in the U.S.
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-05-13-houston-ship-channel-collision
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Dems Eye Big Infrastructure Package, With or Without Trump
May 13, 2019 | The Hill
By Scott Wong and Mike Lillis
If Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Trump can’t strike an infrastructure deal, key Democrats say they should push their own partisan bill through the House ahead of the 2020 elections.
That strategy, backers argue, would demonstrate to voters that they’re making good on the campaign promises that won them the lower chamber last year — and remain focused on those bread-and-butter issues looking ahead.
It would also allow Democrats to shift the conversation away from the intense focus on the many investigations into Trump, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which they fear could alienate voters in crucial swing districts.
“Why doesn't the House just pass a $2 trillion infrastructure bill with our pay-fors and then put the ball in the Senate and Trump's court?” asked Rep. Ro Khanna, a San Francisco Bay–area Democrat and a leading progressive in Congress.
“I think we have to pass something that's really going to convince people the problem isn't politicians. The problem isn't broken Washington. The problem is this president and the Senate,” Khanna added. “If we don't do that, if it's just rhetorical, then I feel that [voters] are just going to increase the cynicism and most people will blame the entire Congress.”
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he still intends to move a sweeping infrastructure package through his committee this year — even if talks with the White House break down.
Whether it gets a floor vote, he emphasized, is up to leadership. But he was quick to note that Democrats ran their successful 2018 campaign on a bare-bones message that featured just three line items: clean government, health care and infrastructure.
“One of the three key issues in us winning back the House was infrastructure,” said DeFazio, who attended the first new White House meeting on the issue on April 30. “I would certainly write a transportation bill.”
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), another member of the Transportation panel, is endorsing that idea enthusiastically.
“I have always thought we should simply be full speed ahead. Waiting for the goalposts to stop moving with this administration, I think, is a recipe for paralysis and inaction,” Huffman said.
The price tag — and the difficult task of finding money to offset those costs — should not discourage Democratic leaders from forging ahead, Huffman said. DeFazio backs a gas tax hike, while progressives are pushing for corporations that now pay zero taxes to fork over money for infrastructure.
“Having promised to do infrastructure, we can't be afraid of the pay-for and let that be an excuse for inaction,” Huffman said, advocating a plan of “at least” $2 trillion. “We’ve got a lot of need out there.”
DeFazio, however, questioned why Democrats would stick their necks out to come up with offsets for a package that was sure to go nowhere in the GOP-controlled Senate. Some of those funding sources would likely be unpopular and could prove politically perilous to centrists who face tough elections next year.
“Probably the Republicans wouldn’t be very supportive,” he said, “If it's just going to be a one-house bill, I don't think there's a great desire to walk the plank on funding.”
The debate comes as many Republicans, particularly those in control of the Senate, are balking at the enormous $2 trillion price tag for infrastructure that Trump agreed to in talks with Democratic leaders earlier in the month. The GOP grumbling has led to widespread doubts about the fate of the negotiations.
Still, many Democrats are holding out hope that Trump, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) can reach a bipartisan agreement to address the nation’s aging roads, bridges, waterways and other projects.
The two sides shook hands on that $2 trillion figure a couple weeks ago at the White House and are aiming to meet again during the week of May 20 to negotiate the hard part: how exactly to pay for it all.
That’s why Pelosi isn’t tipping her hand about her next move if negotiations with Trump collapse. Other Democrats want to give Pelosi and Schumer space to get a deal rather than turn quickly to what Republicans would surely deride as a 2020 Democratic messaging bill.
“I think we should wait and see if a deal is made, and see what the executive branch proposes and have a thoughtful negotiation,” said freshman Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who’s planning to hold an infrastructure hearing in his swing district in the Minneapolis suburbs. “I don’t think disrupting the process right now would be beneficial.”
Democratic negotiators are also urging patience.
“I want to not just pass a bill out of the House, but I think it’s important to get it through the Senate and to the president for his signature,” Assistant Speaker Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who attended the infrastructure meeting with Trump, told The Hill.
“But if our Republican colleagues don’t want to find a way to work together, we should show the American people the package that we would offer as Democrats.”
If Democrats do decide to go it alone, progressive leaders say this should be the approach: Go big and go bold.
“I think we should take a vote on an infrastructure package that the whole caucus can support, and we should make that as broad as possible and as generous as possible, because I don’t think we should wait for the administration if it looks like they’re not going to support it,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, told The Hill while walking into the Speaker’s office.
“Is that $2 trillion? Is it $1.5 trillion? I don’t know, but my intent would be to make it as big as possible because that’s what we need to get the caucus to support it, something that shows we are united as a caucus and that infrastructure investment into jobs is absolutely critical.”
Khanna, the other progressive leader, actually wants leadership to be even more aggressive and bring an infrastructure bill to the floor “as soon as possible” to stake out a negotiating position with Trump and also show voters that Democrats are not obsessed with probing the president and his administration.
“It shows we’re not just focused on investigations,” Khanna said. “Let’s put forward something we can pass. ... I’m for $2 trillion. If it’s a trillion, it’s a trillion.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/443189-dems-eye-big-infrastructure-package-with-or-without-trump
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(ACC Mentioned) Stitched-Handle Rule Divides Bag Ban Supporters
May 13, 2019 | EcoRI News
By Tim Faulkner
The proposed Rhode Island ban on plastic retail bags is dividing some in the environmental community.
Jonathan Berard, co-chair of Gov. Gina Raimondo’s Task Force to Tackle Plastics and executive director of Clean Water Action Rhode Island, is pushing back against other voices in the bag ban movement who say the proposed bill in the General Assembly is flawed.
Specifically, two bag ban proponents who helped pass bans in 14 Rhode Island cities and towns have claimed that the legislation would undermine municipal ordinances through its preemption clause. The stipulation means that a state ban, which they argue doesn’t include adequate restrictions on thick plastic bags, would encourage retailers and shoppers to opt for plastic bags dubbed reusable.
“If Rhode Island passes a state law that preempts local law, and allows thick plastic bags to return to the Ocean State,” said Dave McLaughlin, executive director of Middletown-based Clean Ocean Access, ”the state is sending a message to Big Plastic, American Chemistry Council, and all the other groups that are building methane crackers (natural-gas resin mills), that they can count on the Ocean State as a customer for plastic for years to come.”
The state’s current municipal bag bans have mandates that require thicker plastic bags, 4 millimeters or greater, must be 100 percent recyclable and have stitched handles. Stitched-handled bags are more expensive to manufacture and are generally reused by shoppers. Most handles on the controversial thick plastic bags, however, are part of the bag or are fused on. The bags are recyclable, labeled as reusable, and are cheaper to make than paper bags. Opponents say they increase pollution and are a disincentive for consumers to use reusable bags.
The 5-cent fee in the proposed state ban only applies to paper bags but not to thicker plastic bags, which means they could be offered to shoppers for free.CVS calls its thicker plastic bags reusable, noting they can be reused 125 times or more."
CVS calls its thicker plastic bags reusable, noting they can be reused 125 times or more.
Berard said the notion that the statewide bag ban legislation, as written, would increase plastic-bag use is “mostly fearmongering” by opponents. He noted that thick plastic bags aren’t flourishing in Rhode Island communities that currently have bag bans.
“If a retailer were to distribute thicker bags, most would probably opt to charge for them … since they cost more,” he said.
Berard admitted that the current municipal bag ban ordinances are stronger than the state bill because of their stitched-handle requirement. But as effective policy, he said, they are weaker because they don’t include a mandatory fee on paper bags. The fee, he noted, promotes the use of reusable bags while also reducing costs for small businesses.
Bernard referred to cities and towns in California that amended their bag bans to include a fee on paper bags because shoppers weren’t making the switch to reusable bags. After fees were added, paper-bag use decreased as did the cost to businesses.
He also noted that Washington, D.C., charges a 5-cent fee on all disposable bags. After nearly a decade in place, the bag ban has led to a 70 percent reduction in disposable bag consumption, according to Berard.
However, environmentalists are noticing that the thicker plastic bags with fused handles are showing up at checkout lines for a 5-cent fee in communities that don’t have bag bans. These are the same plastic bags that Barrington outlawed after Shaw’s and CVS began offering them at local stores as reusable bags. The Barrington Town Council eventually revised the town’s bag ban ordinance to require a stitched handle and the provision has since been included in the 13 other bag bans across Rhode Island, including the recent Providence ban.
Both Shaw’s and CVS recently told ecoRI News that they strive to reduce plastic waste but won’t commit to banning the non-stitched-handle plastic bags, unless required to by state or local law.
Berard said Clean Water Action finds the language in the legislation that gives the state jurisdiction over municipal bag bans “problematic” because local communities are incubators for innovative public policy and should be allowed to address their waste and pollution problems.
But, he added, “passage of a state bill would reduce overall statewide disposable-bag usage considerably. And the specter of thin-film plastic bags being replaced at a 1:1 ratio by thicker plastic bags is unsupported by data.”
McLaughlin noted a study of a plastic bag ban in Austin, Texas, that started in 2012, which shows the intent of the law was undermined by retailers who gave out free, thicker plastic bags in place of the standard, thin-film bags that were banned.
McLaughlin embraces the state’s mandatory fee on paper bags but didn't demand it in the municipal bans because there was concern that the city or town would put the fee on all bags, thus allowing stores to continue offering cheaper single-use plastic bags.
McLaughlin and Berard do agree that cities and towns should have the right to regulate bag use if they think it is being exploited.
“All we are asking is for the state law to become the floor,” McLaughlin said, “so all the state needs to do is remove the preemption.”
Both state bag ban bills (S0410 and H5671) had committee hearings in March. No further hearings have been announced.
Rhode Island municipalities with bag bans are: Barrington, Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Jamestown, Warren, Bristol, South Kingstown, North Kingstown, Westerly, Cranston, New Shoreham, Providence, and East Providence.
https://www.ecori.org/government/2019/5/12/stitched-handle-rule-divides-bag-ban-supporters
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U.N. Panel Sets New Guidelines for Estimating Emissions
May 13, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has updated its guidelines for governments to calculate national greenhouse gas emissions.
The decision approving the refined methodologies for greenhouse gas accounting came late last night in Kyoto, Japan, following closed-door negotiations between 122 IPCC member states.
Among other changes, the advisory group has added guidance for countries to calculate their fugitive emissions from mining, transportation and processing fossil fuels.
During a press conference held early today, IPCC delegates highlighted new information on fugitive emissions calculations as among the more detailed changes to the greenhouse gas accounting methodologies.
The new national greenhouse gas inventory guidelines were posted on IPCC's website today.
"This volume contains updated guidance or new guidance on fugitive emissions of methane and carbon dioxide from mining, processing, storage and transportation of coal," said IPCC task force Co-chair Kiyoto Tanabe. "Also fugitive emissions from oil and natural gas systems are including some relatively new technologies."
The revisions update accounting methodologies last finalized in 2006. Nations agreed in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018 to abide by the 2006 greenhouse gas accounting methods and any updates adopted this year. The Paris climate accord also inspired IPCC members to take a new look at greenhouse gas inventory accounting methods.
The organization is also busy compiling a sixth comprehensive assessment report, IPCC members reiterated today. Three working group reports should be finalized and released by 2021, with a full report out by early 2022.
"The sixth assessment report will reflect a new degree of collaboration across various disciplines, integrating very different domains of climate knowledge and bring them together," said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee.
The full report will be issued in time for governments to review their progress in implementing the Paris accord, Lee added.'It's happening now'
Talking to reporters a day after the close of meetings, IPCC members reiterated the urgency for nations to lower global emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in order to limit the extent of warming that the thickening of Earth's atmosphere will deliver.
IPCC task force Co-chair Eduardo Calvo Buendia said following the new IPCC accounting methods will likely mean an increase in the estimated volumes of greenhouse gases emitted annually by some nations.
Though the 2006 methodologies are still sound, "there was a strong requirement to have the 2019 refinement because this new refinement updates, supplements and elaborates them where the authors identified gaps or out-of-date science," Calvo explained.
Elena Manaenkova, deputy secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, alluded to the heat being felt in Kyoto and western Japan in describing the importance of the IPCC's work. Temperatures are already approaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit in the region though it's still early May.
"Today the effects of climate change everyone can feel on their own skin," Manaenkova said. "It's happening now, and people can see it, and people can suffer it."
The United States was represented at IPCC talks in Kyoto, and the U.S. delegation provided important contributions to the new update, said IPCC Chair Lee. He declined to discuss broader U.S. policy concerning the IPCC's work and climate change in general.
The Trump administration is moving to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.
During the meeting, IPCC members also agreed on a plan to improve gender balance within the organization.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/05/13/stories/1060326447
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Trump Drags Feet on Climate Treaty, and Republicans Aren’t Happy
May 13, 2019 | Roll Call
By Benjamin J. Hulac
It has the support of industry heavy-hitters, environmental advocates and a bipartisan cushion of votes in the Senate.
But the Kigali Amendment, a global treaty to limit hydrofluorocarbons — highly potent greenhouse gases found in air conditioners, refrigerators, insulation and foam — is stuck.
When representatives of the world’s largest nations gathered in 2016 in the Rwanda capital city of Kigali, they agreed nearly unanimously to limit the gases, which are far worse for the climate than carbon dioxide but dissipate faster.
“It is likely the single most important step we could take at this moment to limit the warming of our planet and limit the warming for generations to come,” John Kerry, then secretary of State, said at the United Nations talks that October. “It is,” he said, “the biggest thing that we can do in one giant swoop.”
Three years later, the United States has not ratified the deal despite bipartisan support in the Senate and backing from environmentalists and companies that make and distribute HFC-filled products. Without ratification, the U.S. could be subject to trade sanctions under the Montreal Protocol, the legal backstop of Kigali itself, and lose out on more than 30,000 new manufacturing jobs and billions of dollars worth of exports, according to industry estimates.
American companies that sell air-conditioning units could also be locked out of lucrative foreign markets, such as China and India, where demand for cooling systems is booming.
“The demand for AC is going up and up and up,” said Durwood Zaelke, founder and president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, an environmental advocacy group. “We’re going to need more cooling.”
The landmark deal went into effect in January and could prevent up to 0.5 degrees Celsius worth of warming by 2100, a critical and time-buying effort to arrest climate change.
Sen. Thomas R. Carper said ratifying the Kigali agreement “is a decision by the administration that should not take that long to make.” Asked what’s behind the delay, the Delaware Democrat said, “Beats the hell outta me,” adding, “It’s insanity.”
Sen. John Kennedy said there is opposition within administration. “It’s somebody over at EPA and/or the White House that doesn’t like the idea,” said Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, adding that he couldn’t say more. “Not without running the potential of defaming somebody.”
In a statement, the Environmental Protection Agency said the White House is considering the “implications” of ratification. “EPA has been fully engaged in these discussions.”
In a June 2018 letter to President Donald Trump, Kennedy and 12 other Republicans urged the White House to send the Kigali paperwork their way.
“By sending this amendment to the Senate, you will help secure America’s place as the global leader in several manufacturing industries, and in turn give American workers an advantage against their competitors in the international marketplace,” the letter said. “The failure to ratify this amendment could transfer our American advantage to other countries, including China, which have been dumping outdated products into the global marketplace and our backyard.”
The White House referred questions to the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy said he checks in with the White House and EPA on the status of the treaty. “I can’t prove it, but I think I know who’s objecting to it, and every time I talk to them over there, they say they’re studying it,” he said.
“We’re told … off the record by people who know that the pushback appears to be coming from EPA,” Carper said. “We’re told that State Department is ready to go.”
Under Senate rules, treaties need a two-thirds vote to pass. With the 47-member bloc of the Democratic caucus and the 13 Republicans who pledged their support last year, that threshold is in sight.
Carper and Kennedy are confident they would have the numbers if they get their hands on the treaty.
“It makes sense,” Kennedy said. “It’s important to our industry and it’s important to our environment.”
But Kigali does not register with many senators. In brief hallway interviews, two Republican senators, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Todd Young of Indiana, could not recall what Kigali is about. Both signed the letter.
Kigali has its roots in a different environmental treaty — the Montreal Protocol, which nations reached in 1987 to phase out chlorofluorocarbons, or ozone-depleting chemicals, known as CFCs. With industry guidance, HFCs emerged as substitutes. But there was a problem: While the new chemicals were safe for the ozone layer, they were thousands of times more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. Environmental advocates then pushed to phase out HFCs for years, culminating in the summit decades later in Rwanda.
“From a sheer climatic perspective, phasing down HFCs is one of the more important things you can do,” said Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. Full implementation of Kigali would deliver a serious blow against rising temperatures, Light said. “This half degree of avoided warming is massive.”
HFCs are the fastest-growing greenhouse gases domestically and globally, and they are incredibly potent. And while they don’t linger as long as other greenhouse emissions, they do a lot of damage while present.
Negotiating with the private sector to limit HFCs, which occupy a sliver of the economy, is different from pressing firms to lower emissions from hydrocarbons, which are ubiquitous.
Major chemical companies and manufacturers Honeywell, Dow, Ingersoll Rand, Mexichem, General Mills, Chemours and Dell support ratification. So does Carrier, the air-conditioning manufacturer Trump used as a campaign-trail talking point about outsourcing.
George David Banks, a former Trump White House official, pushed for ratification of Kigali before resigning last year. Without Banks, the issue petered out.
Banks did not respond to inquiries for this story. But he has publicly supported Kigali, and multiple sources said he pushed for the deal.
“There really isn’t anyone left in the White House who’s an advocate for this,” Light said, adding that some White House officials in 2017 were also urging ratification. “There are no bodies there.”
Sarah Hunt, co-founder and CEO of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy, which calls itself a “post-partisan” policy research and leadership development group, said the administration may be delaying because if it supports ratification it would be acknowledging the dangers of climate change.
“I think if people were to be frank, that is a larger part of it,” Hunt said. “Also, this administration has not been a big fan of multilateral agreements.”
The eclectic group of forces supporting Kigali adds to the complications. Environmentalists and Democrats support it. So do industry groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, as well as Americans for Tax Reform, led by anti-tax campaigner Grover Norquist.
“How often do you see the Sierra Club and the Chamber of Commerce on the same side?” Hunt said. “You don’t usually see everyone lined up.”
Francis Dietz, vice president for public affairs at the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, an industry trade group, said his organization views it as an apolitical issue and would have pressed a Democratic administration to ratify too.
“All of our members are firmly on board,” Dietz said. They want to get the cut in HFCs in place “one way or another.”
For Dietz’s group, Kigali is about American companies maintaining their technological and competitive edge against rivals overseas. “That’s probably the biggest argument that we make with the administration,” he said.
Federal agencies are going to weigh in “at any given time,” said Samantha Slater, vice president of government affairs at AHRI. “When that time is is unclear.”
Kevin Fay, director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, said the administration should act to ratify soon. Still, treaties can take years to secure approval. “To our knowledge, the White House has only sent up one treaty to the Senate in the last two years — a tuna treaty,” Fay said.
After inauguration, Trump set about swiftly promoting interests of fossil fuel companies and stripping Obama-era climate regulations of their teeth. He also criticized the Paris climate accord in a showy, made-for-TV speech in the White House Rose Garden, where he said he would withdraw. (Under international rules, Trump can extract the U.S. from the deal in November 2020 at the earliest.)
Paul Bledsoe, strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute, said the holdup has a simple explanation: a fervent rejection of anything climate-related.
“I think it’s much more visceral for Trump,” Bledsoe said. “He has the mistaken belief that poking his thumb in the eye of any policy that would have climate benefits is better politics, even if those policies create tens of thousands of new jobs,” he said.
Bledsoe, a climate expert in the Clinton White House, suggested Democrats running for president should target key states and districts where HFCs are made — regions that stand to lose jobs if the U.S. does not keep pace with the global market.
“Only something as directly political as that is ultimately going to matter,” Bledsoe said, adding that he’s skeptical Trump will warm to the treaty. “He’s made 100 decisions in one direction and zero in the other,” he said. “There’s a real direct economic cost of Trump’s climate nihilism.”
Last year, Kennedy and Carper introduced legislation to give EPA authority to phase down domestic HFC manufacturing to give way to their replacements.
They pitched it as a jobs bill, and a bipartisan group of senators signed on: Republicans Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine and Democrats Chris Coons of Delaware and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
“It’s not often that Democrats, Republicans, industry and environmental groups come together to agree on anything,” Kennedy said. “But we are all in agreement on this one.”
Riding the Senate subway recently, Carper turned to an aide and asked why Kigali shouldn’t get a vote in the Senate. It made no sense, they agreed.
“Why we wouldn’t seize the day is beyond me,” Carper said. “We’re still waiting for it.”
http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/trump-climate-treaty-republican-senators-kigali
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Desantis Vetoes Bill That Would Halt Plastic Straw Bans
May 13, 2019 | AP (In E&E - Greenwire)
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has vetoed a bill that would have prevented Florida's local governments from banning plastic straws.
DeSantis rejected the environmental regulation bill Friday, his first veto since taking office earlier this year.
The legislation originally addressed issues with contaminated recyclable materials but was amended to include a moratorium on local regulations of single-use plastic straws until 2024. A legislative analysis of the bill lists 10 Florida cities with straw bans, including Miami Beach, St. Petersburg and Fort Lauderdale.
DeSantis wrote in the veto that the bans hadn't frustrated any state policy or harmed state interests. He said the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is encouraging residents to reduce plastic straw use and added that residents who oppose the local bans should elect new city commissioners.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/05/13/stories/1060326037
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Ewire: Democratic Rivals Swiftly Target Biden's Climate Positioning
May 13, 2019 | Inside EPA
Democratic presidential primary rivals are quickly targeting former Vice President Joe Biden's positioning on climate change, alleging that he is not staking out an ambitious enough stance as he seeks to stake out a “middle ground” on the issue.
The intra-party squabbling comes despite the fact that Biden has only sent high-level signals about his climate platform. But as the issue becomes increasingly important among Democratic voters, rival candidates are quick to highlight any perceived vulnerability.
“There is no 'middle ground' when it comes to climate policy,” charged Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), according to a Washington Post roundup of the “hair-trigger criticism of Biden's climate plan.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) added: “Facing a crisis does not permit half-measures. Half-measures mean full extinction of millions of species and full economic damage to communities across America.”
The other two presidential hopefuls are reacting to a May 10 report from Reuters that quoted informal Biden adviser Heather Zichal -- a former Obama administration climate adviser -- as saying “we need a little bit more reality around this dialogue.”
The story noted that the still-emerging Biden plan would embrace the Paris Agreement and reverse the Trump administration's rollbacks of an array of Obama-era climate policies. It would also likely include a role for nuclear, natural gas and carbon capture and storage.
Biden in a tweet sought to tamp down the attacks by referencing a 1986 law he introduced that required a task force to study climate mitigation. “What I fought for in 1986 is more important than ever -- climate change is an existential threat. Now. Today.”
The campaign says it will release a detailed climate platform in the coming weeks.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-democratic-rivals-swiftly-target-bidens-climate-positioning
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The Energy 202: Democratic Rivals Pounce on Joe Biden Over Climate Change
May 13, 2019 | Washington Post
By Dino Grandoni
Joe Biden's rivals to win the White House in 2020 are trying to cast the former vice president as too soft on climate change after a recent report indicated Biden was seeking a “middle ground" on an issue that is animating the Democratic base.
The hair-trigger criticism of Biden's climate plan, which has yet to be released, underscores the tension emerging between the left and centrist wings of the Democratic Party over the climate issue.
The report, from Reuters, said Biden will seek to rejoin the Paris climate accord and reinstall emissions-reducing regulations that President Trump is trying to throw out. But Biden would also, according to the report, be “supportive of nuclear energy and fossil fuel options like natural gas and carbon capture technology" in an effort to buffer negative impact on working-class folks.
Despite the Biden campaign disputing the report, the suggestion of support for a fossil-fuel energy sources gave candidates seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination the chance to knock Biden, who had emerged as the front-runner in polls even before entering the race last month.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who for years has proposed bills ending tax breaks for fossil-fuel companies, said "[t]here is no 'middle ground' when it comes to climate policy." Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who has made climate change his chief cause in the 2020 race, added: “Facing a crisis does not permit half-measures. Half-measures mean full extinction of millions of species and full economic damage to communities across America."
The standard-bearers of the Green New Deal, a call to drastically reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade that has been endorsed by more than a half-dozen Democratic candidates, also dinged Biden for his yet-to-be-released position.
This is a dealbreaker.
There is no “middle ground” w/ climate denial & delay.
Blaming “blue collar” Americans as the main opponents to bold climate policy is gas lobbyist 101.
Biden sought to tamp down the criticism by reminding voters on Twitter that he introduced climate legislation back in the 1980s as a member of the Senate.
“What I fought for in 1986 is more important than ever — climate change is an existential threat,” Biden said. “Now. Today.” He added that he will release specifics on his climate plan “in the coming weeks.”
Indeed, Biden's legislation called on the United States to set up a task force to plan for the mitigatation of global warming. A version of the bill, first introdcued in 1986, eventually did become law with Ronald Reagan's signature, according to PolitiFact.
When reached for comment, the Biden campaign described the candidate's forthcoming plan as "bold," without getting into any details of it.
"He knows how high the stakes are," said Biden spokesman T.J. Ducklo. "As president, Biden would enact a bold policy to tackle climate change in a meaningful and lasting way, and will be discussing the specifics of that plan in the near future. Any assertions otherwise are not accurate."
Nearly every Democratic official has cast President Trump's policies of trying to revive coal and roll back climate regulations as a threat to the well-being of the planet. But disagreements arise over deciding on the best way to unseat him.
Biden's path to victory probably involves winning back a portion of blue-collar whites who voted for Trump in 2016. Technologies such as carbon capture, a nascent way of seizing climate-warming emissions and storing them underground, offers a promise that heavy-industry energy workers will play a role in reducing emissions while keeping their jobs.
But a handful of more progressive candidates, such as Sanders, want a full transition away from fossil fuels while finding new jobs for workers in those industries. They are heeding the demands of another Democratic cohort, millennial activists, motivated by a dire United Nations report saying the world has little more than a decade to hold warming to moderate levels.
Even in Democratic primaries, votes more often hinge on personal pocketbook issues, such as health care, rather than global subjects such as climate change.
Yet recent polling suggests a shift is underway among Democratic voters. An April survey from CNN found that more than 8 in 10 Democratic and Democratic-leaning independents said it was very important for the next president to take aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2019/05/13/the-energy-202-democratic-rivals-pounce-on-joe-biden-over-climate-change/5cd84ba3a7a0a43760915980/?utm_term=.19b7f76f109b
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May 13, 2019 | Energy and Policy Institute
By Matt Kasper
The Utility Air Regulatory Group announced on Friday that its remaining members had decided to disband the embattled project after more than 40 years. UARG had been an unincorporated group of utilities represented by lawyers at Hunton Andrews Kurth that fought against clean air standards.
But while the utilities may have dissolved UARG, the same corporations still have other “U Groups” that exist to attack EPA’s enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. Just as utilities used UARG to target the Clean Air Act, they have the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group (USWAG) and the Utility Water Act Group (UWAG) to attack EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act and other laws that utilities have long perceived as thorns in their sides.
USWAG is represented by lawyers at Venable LLP. Attorneys from Hunton Andrews Kurth, the same firm that housed UARG, represent the members of UWAG. Both U-groups are set up similarly to UARG: unincorporated, voluntary, ad-hoc coalitions that do not disclose individual utility members. USWAG has been a party in 88 lawsuits since the early 1990s while UWAG has been a party in 99 cases since 2000, according to the Public Access to Court Electronic Records.Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, Utility Water Act Group targeting Obama-era rules; also subsidized by utility customers
UARG’s utility members faced intense scrutiny in recent months since Politico obtained and published confidential documents that outlined goals for a meeting of UARG’s policy committee to attack Obama-era clean air and public health rules.
The spotlight brightened when leading Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to several member-utility CEOs asking for information about EPA air official Bill Wehrum’s relationship with UARG and its member companies. Wehrum was an attorney at Hunton and represented UARG. Congress is investigating how he and another former Hunton lawyer now at the EPA, David Harlow, have helped reverse the agency’s position in a major enforcement action to favor a client of their former law firm – DTE Energy.
The Congressional probe into UARG requested that the utilities state whether they had forced their customers to fund their annual contributions to the collective legal effort. Journalists and consumer advocates also pressed individual utilities to answer the question posed from the members of Congress. Several utilities, including American Electric Power, Arizona Public Service, and Tucson Electric Power, admitted that they force their customers to fund UARG expenses and therefore the legal challenges to the Clean Air Act. Others, such as Ameren, DTE Energy, Dominion, and Duke Energy did not provide details about the source of UARG funding.
Rate case filings reveal that many utilities similarly force their customers to fund their attacks on EPA’s ability to enforce the Clean Water Act via USWAG and UWAG. In 2017, the Minnesota Office of the Attorney General argued that customers of Minnesota Power shouldn’t foot the utility’s membership bill for both USWAG and UWAG. Missouri Public Service Commission Staff explained that Ameren shouldn’t bill its customers $96,010 for UWAG annual dues and $47,163 for USWAG. And in November of 2018, the Kentucky Office of the Attorney General attempted to prevent Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities customers from paying the $68,175 for USWAG annual dues and $109,501 for UWAG.
In a 2016 Arizona Public Service rate case, the Residential Utility Consumer Office (RUCO) described the U-groups as “purely voluntary, many of which are political in nature, and may not be necessary for the provision of utility services.”
Earlier this month, UWAG attorneys were in court to join the defense of the Trump administration’s two-year delay of Obama’s Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG) rule. Two years ago, Hunton attorneys representing UWAG petitioned the Trump EPA to reconsider the ELG rule. Under President Obama, the EPA finalized an update to the rule as it hadn’t been updated since the early 1980s. The rule exists to limit the wastewater that power plants can discharge in waterways. That wastewater includes arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, chromium, and cadmium.
USWAG attorneys, meanwhile, have targeted a coal ash rule, which the Obama Administration proposed in 2010 following the largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Kingston. One billion gallons of coal ash sludge destroyed 300 acres and dozens of homes. The rule established a set of requirements for the safe disposal of coal ash from coal-fired power plants. Similar to the ELG rule, USWAG was quick to petition the Trump EPA to reconsider parts of the coal ash rule. In September 2017, then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced that it will review parts of the rule that USWAG addressed in their petition.
Ten years after the Kingston spill that triggered the rule which USWAG has fought to undermine, 400 workers who cleaned up the spill have been sickened. Another 40 died, according to a tally maintained by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
https://www.energyandpolicy.org/uwag-and-uswag-the-secretive-utility-groups-that-target-epa-rules/
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Embattled Trade Group Tied to EPA Air Chief to Dissolve
May 13, 2019 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
After decades of battling Clean Air Act regulations, an influential power industry trade group based at EPA air chief Bill Wehrum's former law firm is putting itself on a glide path to dissolution.
Members of the Utility Air Regulatory Group, swept up in a congressional investigation and battered by the shift away from coal-fired generation, have decided to "disband the organization following a wind down period," according to a news release issued late Friday. "A committee has been formed to oversee this wind down, including the completion/fulfillment of UARG's existing obligations and support of members as they continue to cooperate with the congressional inquiry."
"Ding Dong, the witch is dead," Paul Billings, a senior official at the American Lung Association, said in a Twitter posting that referenced a famous scene from the movie "The Wizard of Oz."
Key questions, however, remain to be answered, including how long the dissolution process will take and how the organization intends to proceed with dozens of active lawsuits in which it is a party.
The group, usually known by its acronym as UARG, has been a fixture on the federal regulatory scene since the 1970s. While several other utility trade organizations also focus on air quality issues, UARG was widely seen as the most active and aggressive player on that front.
It is based at the firm now known as Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, where Wehrum was previously a partner before rejoining EPA. Last month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee sought an array of documents from the firm and eight power producers as part of broader probe of UARG's activities (E&E News PM, April 11).
The organization had been a client of Wehrum's. While he is recused from involvement in specific matters related to UARG, the air office's current agenda "appears to be remarkably similar to the substantive agenda advanced" by the group, E&C Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and two other senior committee Democrats wrote in their records request to Hunton. The panel's staff is now sifting through a initial round of documents received in response to its inquiry.
In a statement Friday, Pallone and the other lawmakers called UARG "little more than a clandestine movement to undermine clean air protections" and voiced satisfaction at its impending demise. But the committee's investigation will continue, they added. "Important questions remain," they said, about whether Wehrum and his senior counsel, David Harlow, another former Hunton partner, "continue to advance their former coal industry clients' agenda at EPA, and we intend to see those questions through."
Wehrum has previously stressed his efforts to understand his federal ethics obligations. In a Friday statement, Hunton said that it is proud to have been part of the federal regulatory process "on behalf of UARG and other clients for the past 40 years. Hunton will continue to assist its clients in this valuable process."
News of UARG's dissolution was first reported by Politico. According to internal briefing documents previously released by the news outlet, UARG member companies paid more than $6 million in dues in 2017. Anne Malloy Tucker, Hunton's chief marketing officer, did not reply to an emailed request for comment on the potential financial impact of the organization's dissolution.
In 2017, UARG's membership included about two-dozen individual power producers. In recent weeks, more than a half-dozen have confirmed that they have left the organization, with many citing decisions to reduce their reliance on coal as a power source.
One attorney, who requested anonymity because his practice includes UARG clients, called it "overreach" to now portray the group's decision to disband as a cause-and-effect response to the House investigation.
"I think that this is something that UARG members have been thinking about for some time," the attorney said in an interview.
After the recent spate of defections, it's unclear exactly how many members UARG has left. Tucker referred questions to Atlanta-based Southern Co., where spokesman Schuyler Baehman said in an email this morning that he didn't have the answer to that query. Also up in the air is how long the wind-down process will take.
UARG, for, example, is currently a party to more than 40 active federal appellate court lawsuits. Asked today whether the group intends to withdraw from those suits in which it is a plaintiff or see them through to a resolution, a spokeswoman for another member company said those decisions are still on the table.
A committee will now be formed to deal with fulfillment of UARG's obligations, Tammy Ridout of Ohio-based American Electric Power Co. Inc. said in an email. "Details about how long that will take and the status of legal challenges in which UARG is involved still has to be determined," she said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/05/13/stories/1060326901
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Liberal Think Tank Executive Says Climate-Change Policy Shouldn't Be 'Middle Ground'
May 13, 2019 | The Hill - Hill.TV
By Julia Manchester
The executive director of the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, Felicia Wong, told Hill.TV on Monday that U.S. climate change policy should not be "middle ground," citing 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's reported proposal on the issue.
"I really look forward to hearing what Vice President Biden's notion of a middle ground is on climate because one of the most important points in the latest climate debate is that there is general agreement that some kind of price on carbon, some kind of market price on carbon, is one important element that is often the center of anything — what people call a middle ground in climate policy," Wong told Hill.TV's Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti.
"But I would argue, and the latest science and the latest economists argue, that you need to go much farther than that," she continued. "You actually need to look at very large-scale, public investment in some kind of much more green infrastructure."
"We also need to look at real regulation, reining in the oil and gas companies, in addition to some kind of price on carbon," she said.
Reuters reported on Friday that Biden is aiming to propose an approach to combatting climate change that includes recommitting to the Paris agreement.
The report suggests that Biden could be looking to appeal to working-class voters, who may be skeptical of embracing sweeping climate change plans.
However, other Democratic 2020 contenders, including Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), whose campaign is centered around fighting climate change, have signaled their support for the progressive "Green New Deal."
The progressive package of proposals looks to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to net zero over a 10-year period.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/443388-liberal-think-tank-executive-says-climate-change-policy-shouldnt-be-middle
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