EuroWire January 2016

Transatlantic cable

investigations into the company. And, even as Bloomberg reported, the diesel-emissions scandal continued to widen. Earlier on 20 th November, CARB and EPA said they had expanded a notice of violation to include all 3.0-litre diesel-powered autos from model years 2009 through 2016 that originally went back only to 2014. The broader allegation covers about 85,000 Volkswagen Group vehicles: VW, Audi and Porsche. Bloomberg also reported that Volkswagen is facing demands for mitigation of the e ects of its cheating. They wrote: “Of the almost half a million dirty diesels that VW sold in the USA, roughly 60,000 – or 12 per cent – were sold in California. Many of those belong to relatively a uent, green-minded consumers who live in the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles region.” But emissions often get blown into the Central Valley, where air quality is among the worst in the state and asthma rates for children among the highest. CARB is developing an inventory of the pollution spewed into the air as a result of VW’s cheating by looking at the number of miles driven and the emissions pro le of each of the three engine groups. As declared on the CARB website: “VW will be held accountable for the extra emissions that the vehicles released to the air.” † Advocacy groups are pushing for a mitigation fund that could total hundreds of millions of dollars to address the excess emissions of smog-producing nitrogen oxide. And the Greenlining Institute, a non-pro t based in Berkeley, wants Volkswagen to o er incentives to help low- and moderate-income Californians drive electric vehicles, such as subsidised leases for its electric Golf. Ms Hull and Mr Plungis observed: “[Greenlining] also suggests that VW pay for charging stations and electric-vehicle car-sharing in disadvantaged communities.”

Steel

Large American steel producers say a WTO reclassi cation of China as a market economy would render trade cases ine ective China, which has expanded its domestic steel industry and stepped up its steel exports in recent years, is lobbying for recognition as a market economy when its World Trade Organization designation as a government-controlled economy expires in December 2016. China joined the WTO in 2001 and has said it believes its agreement with the organisation enables it to attain market-economy status after 15 years. As noted by Alex Nixon in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (12 th November), the changed designation would make it harder for US steel makers to demonstrate the dumping of steel in the American market by Chinese competitors. The US Commerce Department consults prices in other countries to determine the extent to which steel imports undercut domestic companies. With China’s reclassi cation, import duties would be based on prices in China that are held to whatever level is set by Beijing. US Steel Corp CEO Mario Longhi and other leading industry executives say the proposed change would decimate struggling American steel producers, expected to face even greater pressure from China as its economy cools and exports grow.

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January 2016