A successful Spring! – March 2024
March 30, 2024
Dear Chemistry Advocates, Starting us off with some great news out of Wyoming, where with unanimous bipartisan support in both chambers, the state became the 25th to adopt legislation ensuring that advanced recycling facilities are transparently and properly regulated as manufacturing operations. With SF 80 becoming law, half of the United States is welcoming innovative recycling technologies that allow plastics to be remade, again and again. Read more about this major win for the environment here. |
U.S. in ‘Key Position’ to Help Reach Successful Global Plastics Solution Could the news from Wyoming be just the start of good news for plastics solutions? This month, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) President and CEO Chris Jahn sent a letter to President Biden outlining a set of elements needed for a successful global plastics agreement and requesting a meeting to address priority issues going into the fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4). “The U.S. is in a key position to help forge agreement among delegations and arrive at an effective final agreement,” Jahn writes in the letter. “Such an outcome will require discipline at home and abroad: the U.S. must continue to use its domestic regulatory authorities to address plastic pollution constructively and intelligently, while also pressing for implementable language in the global agreement that spurs circularity and eliminates plastic pollution.” You can learn more about the recent letter and INC-4 here. |
MEMBER HIGHLIGHT
This month, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) awarded $6 billion for 33 decarbonization projects in America’s manufacturing industry. Several exciting projects from ACC members were awarded. You can learn more about the projects here.
| This year, we’ve kicked off with a bang! We’ve criss-crossed the country to visit factories large and small, bringing elected officials along the way to see how chemistry creates our modern world. We’ve visited 21 states so far! Check out the map below to see where we’ve been so far:  |
| Write Congress to say: Reinstate CFATS now! Congress must act quickly to bolster national security & reinstate the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS). This important national security program expired earlier this year. CFATS is the only federal program focused specifically on reducing security risks at chemical facilities. This program helps protect critical infrastructure from a range of threats, including cyber-attacks. Without CFATS in place: Chemical facilities can no longer vet employees against the FBI’s terrorist database The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can no longer track where chemicals of interest are manufactured, stored, or distributed. CFATS must be restored ASAP. It has a solid track record of helping companies large and small. We can’t afford to let our guard down. Congress must act quickly to reinstate CFATS to restore protections for chemical facilities, workers, and communities across the country. |