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January 17, 2025
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Plastics News | Jim Johnson | Jan. 13, 2025Another online resource is launching to help consumers find flexible plastic film recycling locations around the United States. The Flexible Film Recycling Alliance, part of the Plastics Industry Association trade group, said the new Plastic Film Recycling Directory "aims to increase plastic film recycling rates across the United States by improving consumer access to recycling collection points, and providing clear educational resources on how to responsibly recycle plastic film." |
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick | Jan. 17, 2025Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issued the following statement today upon announcing his Texas Senate committee appointments for the 89th Legislature. |
The Texas Standard | Pooja Salhotra | Jan. 13, 2025Texas is projected to have $194.6 billion available in general revenue to fund the business of the state over the 2026-2027 biennium, a slight decrease from the last budget cycle while still putting Texas in a strong financial position, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar said Monday in his biennial revenue estimate to state lawmakers and leaders. |
The Texas Tribune | Alejandra Martinez | Jan. 14, 2025Fertilizers that contain treated sewage tainted with toxic PFAS chemicals can be spread on farmland and pose a health risk to people who consume milk, eggs and beef, the agency says.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a long-awaited risk assessment Tuesday on the presence of PFAS in sewage sludge, and found that the risk is much higher than suspected and could pose risks to human health. |
Reuters | Jan. 14, 2025U.S. energy giant Exxon Mobil has requested the Texas General Land Office (GLO) to not publicly disclose the terms of its offshore lease agreement for a carbon sequestration project with the state. In a letter on Jan. 13 to the Attorney General of Texas, the company asked to instruct the GLO not to disclose materials under the Texas Public Information Act, as they contained confidential and proprietary commercial and financial information. |
Texas Public Radio | Michael Marks | Jan. 14, 2025It’s a safe bet that at times, a parched West Texan has wished they could just pipe water in fresh from another part of the state. After all, Midland gets just 15 inches of rainfall a year, whereas Houston gets more like 50. This is a notion that’s also caught the interest of Gov. Greg Abbott. According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, Gov. Abbott brought up the idea of buying Houston’s excess water to send to West Texas in a conversation with Houston Mayor John Whitmire. |
The Texas Tribune | Jayme Lozano Carver and Alejandra Martinez | Jan. 16, 2025According to interviews with water leaders across the state and with the lawmaker himself, the priority is clear — create a dedicated stream of state tax dollars to help local water agencies and cities buy more water and update the infrastructure that carries it to homes, businesses and farms. Perry plans on asking lawmakers for as much as $5 billion for success in maintaining water infrastructure and growing water supply in the future, amid the state's population growth. |
Financial Times | Sylvia Pfeifer | Jan. 12, 2025Britain’s chemical industry is heading for extinction because of a combination of high energy prices and carbon taxes, according to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire owner of petrochemicals group Ineos. The company, which owns several petrochemical plants at Grangemouth in Scotland and co-owns the associated refinery, shut down ethanol production on the site last week. The 80 employees directly affected have been redeployed across the remaining chemicals operations at Grangemouth, although Ineos said as many as 500 indirect roles would be affected across the wider economy. |
Plastics News | Frank Esposito | Jan. 8, 2025Materials maker Covestro has announced a major expansion at a U.S. compounding plant, as well as a collaboration with technology firm Wistron NeWeb Corp. Both projects are related to polycarbonate. |
Plastics News | Steve Toloken | Jan. 7, 2025ExxonMobil Corp. sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta and several environmental groups Jan. 6, accusing them of defaming the company's chemical recycling technologies for political and financial gain. The 40-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Beaumont, Texas, alleges that Bonta and the environmental groups — including the Sierra Club and the Surfrider Foundation — are part of a coordinated campaign supported by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest and his Minderoo Foundation, which has been active in plastics debates. |
Bloomberg | Barbara Powell and Nathan Risser | Jan. 9, 2025Texas refineries are bracing for an onslaught of cold, snow and freezing rain as the US South’s first major winter storm sweeps in during what’s projected to be a frigid month. While temperatures in the upcoming storm aren’t expected to hold below freezing for long, the Commodity Weather Group forecasts January will likely be the coldest in 11 years, according to heating degree days value, a way to measure weather-driven energy demand. |
Safety + Health | Jan. 13, 2025The Environmental Protection Agency will ban the use of the toxic chemical trichloroethylene and prohibit most uses of the carcinogenic chemical substance perchloroethylene, under separate final rules announced in December. TCE is used in dishwashing products and as a solvent in brake and parts cleaning, recycling, and disposal. In 2014, EPA determined that the substance may cause cancer, developmental and neurological effects, and toxicity to the liver. |
Houston Chronicle | Claire Hao | Jan. 10, 2025Constellation would buy Calpine with 50 million of its shares and $4.5 billion in cash, as well as assume approximately $12.7 billion of Calpine's debt, according to a Friday joint statement. In total, the deal would be valued at approximately $26.6 billion, the companies said. |
BIC Magazine | January 9, 2025Texas Ports contribute more than $713.9 billion in economic activity for the State accounting for 28% of Texas’ gross domestic product (GDP), further advancing Ports as a catalyst for state economic growth and job generation, according to a recent economic impact study by the Texas Ports Association (TPA). |
Houston Chronicle | Edward McKinley, Taylor Goldenstein, Isaac Yu | Jan. 145, 2025The Texas House on Tuesday elected Rep. Dustin Burrows as its next speaker, elevating a conservative Republican and former top House deputy who has sought to rein in local Democratic elected officials. The bipartisan vote, 85 to 55, was a rebuke of far-right Republicans and their wealthy donors, who had gone all in on a challenger, North Texas Rep. David Cook. Their campaign became especially heated in recent weeks, with attack mailers going out in lawmakers’ districts and the state GOP threatening to block any Republican members who voted for Burrows from appearing on its future primary ballots. |
CNN | Kristen Rogers | Jan. 14, 2025The US Food and Drug Administration has banned the use of red dye No. 3 in food, beverages and ingested drugs, more than 30 years after scientists discovered links to cancer in animals, the agency announced Wednesday. A synthetic color additive made from petroleum and chemically known as erythrosine, red dye No. 3 is used to give foods and beverages a bright cherry-red color. |
Chemical Processing | Amanda Joshi | Jan. 15, 2025The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) has announced up to $100 million in federal funding is available for large-scale conversion of carbon emissions captured from industrial operations and power plants into environmentally responsible and economically valuable products. |
EPA | Jan. 14, 2025Today, Jan. 14, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a draft risk assessment, or scientific evaluation of the potential human health risks associated with the presence of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) chemicals in biosolids, also known as sewage sludge. |
Inside EPA | Stuart Parker | Jan. 16, 2025EPA is planning new limits on emissions of the solvent ethylene oxide (EtO) from smaller “area source” chemical plants, along with tougher requirements for pressure relief devices, a facility fenceline air monitoring program and new leak detection and repair mandates, but the plan faces seemingly slim prospects under the Trump administration. |
EPA | Jan. 14, 2025On January 14, EPA released the Interim Decision for Ethylene Oxide (EtO) – a pesticide used on 50 percent of all sterilized medical devices in the United States and on approximately 30 percent of dried herbs and spices. EtO is known to cause cancer, including lymphocytic leukemia, breast cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma in people. Workers who use EtO and people who work, live, or go to school or daycare near facilities that use EtO may breathe in emissions at levels that can increase cancer risk. The greatest risk is for people who work for their entire careers at facilities directly handling EtO with insufficient worker protections in place. |
BNA Environment & Energy Report | Pat Rizzuto | Jan. 16, 2025Courts will continue to play critical roles as the EPA’s chemical and pesticide office transitions from the outgoing Biden to the incoming second Trump administration. Three settlements since 2023 set deadlines mandating Environmental Protection Agency decisions about whether chemicals must be regulated and developed paths forward to better protect endangered species and obtain data about pesticides’ potential to mimic, block, or alter critical functions of certain hormones. |
Chemical & Engineering News | Alexander H. Tullo | Jan. 10, 2025Despite a robust US economy, weak spots such as manufacturing and construction have put the country’s chemical enterprise in a slump. That scenario should start to change this year as lower interest rates percolate through the economy. Longer term, the US industry is in a good competitive position, but possible tariffs from the incoming administration of Donald J. Trump pose a risk. |
BIC Magazine | Jan. 14, 2025The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) announced that it is launching a new initiative to give the public more details about the serious chemical incidents that have been reported to the CSB since the agency’s Accidental Release Reporting Rule (ARRR) went into effect in March 2020. |
Houston Chronicle | Claire Hao | January 16, 2025The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state's power grid operator, is expected to pass its second test of the winter early next week, when another arctic front is anticipated to bring frigid temperatures to much of the state. |
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