January 15, 2020 — The so-called “Phase One” trade deal, which cancels current and proposed U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for structural economic reforms in China, was formally by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Wednesday, 15 January at the White House in Washington D.C.
The deal, which includes specific provisions pertaining to seafood, will go into effect in 30 days.
January 8, 2020 — The White House is poised to exclude climate considerations from its controversial rewrite of rules surrounding the nation’s core environmental law.
The Council on Environmental Quality’s proposed changes to National Environmental Policy Act guidelines will likely emerge this week.
NEPA, signed into law by President Nixon, gives communities input and allows them to challenge federal decisions on projects like pipelines, highways and bridges. And it requires federal regulators to analyze a host of impacts.
The Trump plan is expected to “simplify the definition of environmental ‘effects’ and clarify that effects must be reasonably foreseeable and require a reasonably close causal relationship to the proposed action,” according to a draft White House memo obtained by E&E News.
In other words, the government could only study the impacts tied directly to a project — not how a project would add to a larger problem, something environmentalists have been clamoring for.
“No one pipeline causes climate change, so that wouldn’t be considered a reasonably close causal relationship,” explained Christy Goldfuss, a senior vice president at the left-leaning Center for American Progress (CAP). “I suspect that’s the intent.”
January 8, 2020 — Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday, 8 January, against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, claiming it has not done enough to protect green sea turtle habitats across the country from a variety of threats.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Sea Turtle Oversight Protection claim NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined nearly four years ago that the turtles still required protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) because of threats from climate change and rising sea levels.
January 8, 2020 — In late December, on the doorstep to the Christmas holidays, New England’s groundfishermen received an early present.
As part of a $1.4 trillion spending package, the U.S. Senate passed a $79.4 billion appropriations bill that includes another $10.3 million for NOAA Fisheries — once again secured by New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen — to fully fund at-sea monitoring in the Northeast groundfish fishery for the 2020 fishing season that begins May 1.
When President Donald Trump signed the bill into law the next day, the mandated shouldering of the full financial weight of at-sea monitoring by the groundfish industry — at a cost of up to $700 per day per vessel — had been deferred for at least another fishing season.
“This is obviously very good news for our commercial groundfishermen,” said Jackie Odell, executive director of the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition. “At-sea monitoring has become such a huge financial issue for everyone in the fishery.”
It was the third consecutive year that Shaheen, a ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, bailed out the groundfish industry on at-sea monitoring. Shaheen secured the first $10.3 million in the 2018 appropriations process that fully funded at-sea monitoring during the current fishing season.
January 2, 2020 — U.S. President Donald Trump said he will sign the so-called “Phase One” trade deal with China, first announced on 13 December.
Trump said on Twitter he would sign the deal on 15 January at the White House. He also announced plans to travel to Beijing for negotiations on Phase Two at an unspecified later date.
December 23, 2019 — A mining company secretly collaborated with the governor of Alaska to lobby the Trump administration to move forward with a mining project that Environmental Protection Agency scientists warned could devastate the world’s most valuable wild salmon habitat, according to newly released emails obtained by CNN.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office was given detailed talking points, ghostwritten letters and advice on lobbying strategies by Pebble Limited Partnership executives, emails show. Dunleavy and his office then used that material, sometimes adopting the company’s language word for word, in an effort that culminated in President Donald Trump promising favorable action on the mine, according to emails.
One striking example of the governor using Pebble’s language is an official letter Dunleavy sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in April about the length of a public comment period on the mine’s draft environment impact statement.
December 19, 2019 — Less than a month after Barry Myers, the controversial pick to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, withdrew from consideration, President Trump has nominated acting administrator Neil Jacobs to lead the agency.
Jacobs, a meteorologist, has been the acting head of NOAA since 2018, but the agency has been without a permanent leader since Trump was inaugurated, the longest rudderless stretch in its history. The agency is tasked with a diverse range of duties, including forecasting the weather, conducting climate research, managing the nation’s fisheries and more.
Jacobs sailed through Senate confirmation to serve as the assistant secretary of commerce or, in his current official capacity, acting head of NOAA. However, to be confirmed as permanent NOAA administrator, he will require a new confirmation vote.
December 19, 2019 — Don’t expect bill markups or votes on presidential nominees in January during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, the chairmen of Senate committees responsible for energy and environment legislation and related nominees said Dec. 18.
“It’s my understanding that committees are not going to be able to report to the floor bills during that period of time,” Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told reporters.
Still under discussion, Barrasso said, is whether committees during the impeachment trial are “going to be able to have hearings or not, on what topics, and what legislation we’ll be able to pursue.”
The House on Dec. 18 was debating two articles of impeachment against Trump, with final impeachment votes were scheduled in the evening.
Morning Hearings
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said she expects the committee will be able to hold hearings in the morning up until about noon or so for days the Senate is in session in January.
“I don’t believe you can mark up bills” when the Senate is holding its impeachment trial, she said, though committees could continue to conduct oversight and hearings on both bills and nominees.
December 17, 2019 — The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the U.S. military for the 2020 fiscal year, includes provisions to combat illicit fishing and increase transparency in the seafood industry.
The bill’s fate had been in jeopardy because of questions over whether it would curtail President Donald Trump’s authority to spend defense money on the proposed border wall. Congressional negotiators kicked those negotiations down the road, and on Wednesday, 11 December, the House overwhelmingly passed the bill; bipartisan approval is expected to push it through the Senate, too.
December 13, 2019 — The United States and China announced an agreement in which China will make structural reforms to its trading policies and strengthen its intellectual property protections in exchange for a reduction of current and proposed U.S. tariffs.
The U.S. will cancel its plan to implement another round of tariff increases later this month, and will reduce its 15 percent tariffs to 7.5 percent on USD 120 billion (EUR 107.9 billion) worth of Chinese goods. It will leave in place 25 percent tariffs on an additional USD 250 billion (EUR 224.8 billion) of Chinese imports, however, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). The USTR did not identify which goods would see reduced tariffs.