MOSCOW (MRC) -- Michael Regan has been confirmed as EPA administrator and is expected to play a large role in President Biden’s climate agenda as well as in strengthening environmental protections following rollbacks by the Trump administration, according to Chemweek.
Regan, who is the first black EPA administrator, was formerly secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and former member of the federal government’s air quality office. Regan’s resume includes leading negotiations that resulted in the cleanup of the Cape Fear River, which had been contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), as well as the creation of North Carolina’s first Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board to address societal disparities exacerbated by environmental issues.
“[The selection] cements the Biden administration’s commitment to environmental justice, a concept in search of execution in practice,” Lynne L. Bergeson, managing partner at Bergeson & Campbell (Washington, DC), told CW in December upon Regan’s nomination. “He seems to be highly regarded and solicitous of broad stakeholder engagement when faced with challenging issues.”
American Chemistry Council says it looks forward to working with Regan to “help ensure the nation’s key environmental statutes are administered in a way that protects human health and the environment.”
As MRC reported earlier, in January 2021, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted three waivers to oil refiners that exempt them from US biofuel blending obligations, a last-minute move before President Donald Trump left office. The agency granted two waivers for the 2019 compliance year and one waiver for the 2018 compliance year. The announcement followed four years of controversy around the waiver program under the Trump administration, but left many questions unresolved. Some 30 waiver requests remain outstanding for 2019 and 15 for 2020, which the incoming administration of Joe Biden will need to deal with.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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