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February 06, 2019 01:00 AM

A renewed call for recycling infrastructure following State of the Union

Steve Toloken
Assistant Managing Editor
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    Whitehouse.gov

    President Donald Trump's State of the Union address Feb. 5 prompted a plastics industry trade group to renew its call for federal spending on recycling infrastructure, as other manufacturing groups echoed the president's call to approve the new version of the NAFTA trade pact.

    Plastics-related environmental concerns also popped up, with several members of Congress highlighting water pollution sometimes tied to the industry. A lawmaker from New York, for example, invited a constituent to the speech who has raised concerns around contamination from a local fluoropolymer processing plant.

    But it was the president's public comments on infrastructure and manufacturing job growth that drew the attention in industry circles.

    A new federal infrastructure program was the first of several items President Trump mentioned as part of an agenda that he described as bipartisan.

    "Both parties should be able to unite for a great rebuilding of America's crumbling infrastructure," Trump said. "I know that Congress is eager to pass an infrastructure bill — and I am eager to work with you on legislation to deliver new and important infrastructure investment, including investments in the cutting edge industries of the future. This is not an option. This is a necessity."

    In response, the Plastics Industry Association in Washington renewed a call it made a year ago, after the 2018 State of the Union speech, for recycling programs to be part of any new federal effort to beef up roads, rails and other infrastructure.

    It said in a Feb. 5 statement that the industry "is working to be a part of the infrastructure and recycling solution."

    "Bans on some products like straws, are proliferating around the country, but the nation has entered a critical time for investment in a new generation of waste management solutions, especially as China and other countries who have been the primary processors of scrap plastic recycling, make significant policy changes that require the U.S. to make new investments," the association said.

    The Vinyl Institute in Washington, as well, said Trump's calls for bipartisan efforts on infrastructure would be good for plastic pipe and building materials.

    "The replacement of failing pipes in America's water and wastewater systems is one of the most timely investments our nation can pursue," Chairman Dick Heinle said. "VI is committed to working with Congress and the White House to ensure that water infrastructure funding is a major component of any [infrastructure program]."

    In last year's State of the Union, Trump said he favored a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan.

    But this year's address did not specify a dollar amount or discuss how it would be paid for, and some observers have questioned the lack of political action moving it forward in Washington.

    The head of the Alliance for American Manufacturing tweeted in response that he hoped for more concrete action, rather than public events, this year.

    "I hope to god that 2019 brings fewer infrastructure weeks and MORE infrastructure action," said AAM President Scott Paul. "We must rebuild America."

    Jay Timmons, the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said the speech pointed out the need for Congress to approve the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to replace the NAFTA trade deal, as well as for Washington to pass legislation to reform the immigration system and invest in infrastructure and workforce training.

    Timmons called it a "post-partisan agenda."

    "Our industry is coming off the best year for manufacturing job creation in more than two decades, and in 2018 the NAM's Manufacturers' Outlook Survey found the highest level of optimism among manufacturers in the survey's 20-year history," he said, highlighting tax reform and regulatory changes.

    Job growth

    In the speech, the president specifically singled out rising wages in blue-collar jobs and employment growth in manufacturing — he said 600,000 manufacturing jobs have been added in the last two years and called it "something which almost everyone said was impossible to do."

    "Companies are coming back to our country in large numbers thanks to our historic reductions in taxes and regulations," he said.

    But AAM's Paul said in a tweet that the 600,000 figure is "simply not true." He said government data shows a maximum of 487,000 manufacturing jobs added since Trump's November 2016 election victory.

    "That's a good number but why exaggerate?" Paul wrote.

    He said manufacturers have added 1.37 million jobs in a run of growth stretching back more than eight years into the Barack Obama's presidency, including the 467,000 since Trump's victory.

    He said that "blows away" the last sustained period of growth in U.S. manufacturing employment, from 1993 to 1998, when factories added 898,000 jobs.

    Trump also used his speech to highlight his tougher approach to trade with China, including the $250 billion in tariffs imposed on Chinese exports.

    Paul agreed with Trump's push on that, although other manufacturing and plastics groups were silent in their speech comments.

    While it wasn't part of the president's comments, events in Washington around the speech also highlighted growing concerns in Congress around water pollution from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

    In addition to being used in fluoropolymer manufacturing, the class of chemicals are used in a wide range of applications, including firefighting foams and coatings for paper packaging.

    Several members of Congress invited local residents active around PFAS pollution issues as their guests to attend the speech.

    Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., brought Michael Hickey, a resident of Hoosick Falls, N.Y., who first raised issues of drinking water contamination from two Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. factories in that town, after his father died of cancer in 2013.

    Delgado is part of the Congressional PFAS Task Force, which formed in January.

    Delgado and other lawmakers have sent a flurry of letters to the Environmental Protection Agency in recent days after media reports suggested the Trump administration's new rules on PFAS drinking water safety would be much looser than recent actions by several state governments, including New York.

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