|
The Morning Risk Report: EPA Set to Roll Back Coal-Plant Rules |
|
| |
|
|
The Dayton Power & Light J.M. Stuart Station lights up the early morning sky on the banks of the Ohio River in Aberdeen, Ohio. PHOTO: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS
|
|
|
Good morning. The Trump administration this week plans to replace Obama-era climate policies with new rules designed to help coal-burning plants run harder and stay open longer, The Wall Street Journal’s Tim Puko reports.
The proposed new rules, which the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release within days, would be the latest in a series of reversals of policies the Obama administration adopted to slow climate change. It would replace the agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan for the electricity business with regulations that cede power to states, and could ultimately lead to more heat-trapping gases going into the atmosphere even as it sets parameters to boost efficiency at coal-fired power plants.
[Continues below...]
|
|
|
|
President Trump has repeatedly promised to support coal, an industry beset by a shrinking customer base, competition, falling prices and bankruptcies; the plan may be his administration’s most ambitious effort yet to kill regulations on coal’s behalf.
And yet plummeting costs of cleaner fuels including natural gas, wind and solar in recent years have driven consumers and power companies away from coal so dramatically, they may blunt the proposal’s ultimate effect.
The Trump administration proposal would have to be submitted for a public rule-making process before taking effect. It would apply to the power industry at large, but is firmly targeted at coal.
|
|
|
| Exclusive From Risk & Compliance Journal |
|
|
U.K. files corruption charges against engineering firm executives. The U.K. Serious Fraud Office said Friday it started a probe nearly three years ago into an engineering firm that makes seismic testing equipment. It also announced on Friday corruption charges against the founder and a managing director.
Güralp Systems Ltd. founder Cansun Guralp and managing director Andrew Bell were charged with conspiracy to make corrupt payments in violation of U.K. law. They allegedly conspired for 13 years to pay a public official and employee of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, or KIGAM, the SFO said.
They are due to appear Monday at Westminster Magistrates Court in London. Lawyers for the men didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment. The company declined to comment.
The SFO said in its statement that the investigation into Güralp, which is based in Reading, U.K., began Dec. 3, 2015, but hadn't been previously announced. The SFO declined to comment further when reached via email.
Court documents filed in the U.S. indicate that the company paid Heon-Cheol Chi, a former director of the earthquake research center at KIGAM. Mr. Chi was sentenced in October to 14 months in prison after he was convicted of laundering bribes paid to him by seismology companies.
Mr. Chi has filed an appeal against the conviction; oral arguments have yet to be scheduled, according to the U.S. docket. -- Samuel Rubenfeld
|
|
| From Risk & Compliance Journal |
|
|
The U.S. imposed sanctions on two Myanmar military units and four border guard and police commanders amid a global outcry from human-rights groups about abuses and mass killings of religious minority groups, including Rohingya Muslims, by the Myanmar government.
|
|
|
|
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Xi Jinping, China's president, shake hands during a news conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
|
|
|
Chinese and U.S. negotiators are mapping out talks to try to end their trade standoff ahead of planned meetings between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at multilateral summits in November, said officials in both nations. U.S. companies warn that the next proposed round of tariffs would hurt from the cradle to the grave, Reuters reports.
KPMG was fined £2.1 million after the U.K.’s accounting regulator concluded its services for retailer Ted Baker fell short of ethical standards, FT reports. The regulator also reprimanded Michael Barradell, a partner at the firm, and fined him £46,800.
French oil major Total SA has completed its pull-out of a giant energy project in Iran due to the threat of U.S. sanctions, according to Iran’s oil minister, who spoke on state TV.
The Trump administration has rejected an effort by Turkey to tie the release of a U.S. pastor with relief for a major Turkish bank facing billions of dollars in U.S. fines, a senior White House official said.
The exodus of Venezuelans gained pace as the government’s plans to address the collapsing economy fueled anxiety, while tensions grew in neighboring countries that have strained to absorb refugees. Over the weekend, Venezuela’s battered business sector warned that President Nicolás Maduro’s plans—including a leap in the minimum wage, new taxes and a currency devaluation—would paralyze the economy and drive more people out. The record devaluation has added to the
chaos, Bloomberg reports.
The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development is wooing China to sign the organisation’s anti-bribery convention, Global Investigations Review reports.
China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co. is looking to unload a luxury hotel collection that it acquired for $5.5 billion two years ago, people familiar with the matter told WSJ, as pressure builds on the company to raise cash following its seizure by the government.
Under fire from Chinese state media, Apple Inc. said it removed illegal gambling apps from its App Store in China—a move that could help quell the latest challenge for the American tech giant in its most important market outside of the U.S.
|
|
|
Some car-parts manufacturers and other businesses in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, an industrial city adjacent to Detroit, are starting to feel the effects of the White House’s recent trade actions. White House officials have argued that the tariffs’ effects on U.S. consumers will be small and broadly dispersed. But for foreign locales such as Windsor that heavily depend on trade with the U.S., the impact may be acute.
The booming world of “green bonds” faces a credibility problem: Definitions can be so fuzzy that environmentally conscious investors might end up funding fossil-fuel power stations.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. faces millions in losses after its controversial purchase of Venezuelan bonds.
Atlantia SpA traded at a four-year low, Bloomberg reports, after Italy started a formal process to revoke the construction company’s toll-highway operating concessions after the Genoa bridge disaster last week.
|
|
|
For years Edward Lampert has called the shots at Sears Holdings Corp. as its chief executive, largest shareholder and biggest lender. But his latest play to keep the struggling chain afloat is out of his hands. The Sears board’s four independent members must decide whether to sell one of the company’s prized brands to its controlling shareholder or hold out at a time that Sears’s business has deteriorated and a major debt payment looms.
|
|
|
Global luxury brands are investing in China for the first time since a crackdown on conspicuous spending five years ago, Reuters reports, focusing on smaller, less developed cities.
PepsiCo Inc. has agreed to buy home-carbonation company SodaStream International Ltd. for $3.2 billion, the latest move by the cola giant to diversify away from sugary sodas and salty snacks.
|
|
|
Transnet SOC Ltd. said it’s putting together a plan to stamp out irregular spending that’s damaged the reputation of South African’s state-owned ports and rail operator and hurt its ability to attract investment, Bloomberg reports.
|
|
|
The U.S. government is trying to force Facebook Inc. to break the encryption in its popular Messenger app so law enforcement may listen to a suspect’s voice conversations in a criminal probe, three people briefed on the case said to Reuters.
|
|
|
Some CPAs are up in arms about a move by their industry’s main trade group to allow people from outside their ranks to be credentialed to help companies value complex assets.
|
|
|
Readers can subscribe to The Morning Risk Report here: http://on.wsj.com/MorningRiskReportSignup. Follow us on Twitter at @WSJRisk.
Follow the WSJ Risk & Compliance Team on Twitter: @WSJRisk, @srubenfeld and @LikelyMara.
Send complaints, comments and kudos to Samuel Rubenfeld at samuel.rubenfeld@wsj.com.
|
|
|