A civilian Pentagon official on Wednesday ordered the US Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a full environmental assessment of a US$9.4 billion Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) complex planned in Louisiana, drawing praise from environmentalists.
US Army Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jaime Pinkham ordered the review after a virtual meeting with opponents of a corps wetlands permit that allowed Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) member FG LA LLC to build 10 chemical plants and four other major facilities on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Critics praised the decision.
“The Army Corps has finally heard our pleas and understands our pain. With God’s help, Formosa Plastics will soon pull out of our community,” said a statement by Sharon Lavigne, who founded the local group Rise St James to fight the planned complex announced in 2018.
Photo: AP
Formosa, based in Taiwan, wants to produce polyethylene, polypropylene, polymer and ethylene glycol on 970 hectares in St James Parish. Dubbed “The Sunshine Project” because it is near the Sunshine Bridge, the project is expected to provide 1,200 permanent jobs and up to 8,000 construction jobs, the state has said.
Formosa yesterday said the company would re-evaluate the investment and expects a result by the end of the year.
The environmental assessment would certainly delay the progress of the factory construction, Formosa said.
The corps issued a permit in September 2019 to let FG LA dredge and fill wetlands, and create detention ponds in wetlands, a lawsuit by opponents said.
It said the site includes more than 364 hectares of wetlands, of which nearly 25 hectares of wetlands and nearly 20 hectares of other waters would be permanently affected.
It could take years to put together a full environmental impact statement, Lavigne said in an interview.
She said she silently thanked God when Pinkham said he was planning the order.
“I had to touch myself to see if I’m real,” said Lavigne, who earlier this year was awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize honoring grassroots environmental activism.
Within an hour, Pinkham’s memo to the corps’ commanding general was posted on his office’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, she said.
Pinkham, who supervises and sets policy for the corps’ civil works, wrote that he is committed to having the army “be a leader in the federal government’s efforts to ensure thorough environmental analysis and meaningful community outreach.”
The corps needs “to thoroughly review areas of concern, particularly those with environmental justice implications,” Pinkham wrote.
Major construction has been on hold since the corps agreed in November last year to reconsider its permit for the plants in Welcome, where the US Bureau of Census estimates nearly 97 percent of the 880 residents are black.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS