The State Department is seeking public comments on steps it can take to combat international deforestation, including by removing commodities grown on deforested lands from agricultural supply chains. The agency hopes the recommendations lead to proposed legislation as it looks to implement an executive order on strengthening the U.S.’s forests. Comments, requested this week, are due Dec. 2.

U.S. politicians are sending a mixed message on trade with Taiwan, experts said during an event hosted by the Hudson Institute, a right-of-center think tank mostly focused on foreign policy.

Law firms analyzing the impact of two bills that would ban "forever chemicals" in textiles and cosmetics said that while California's ban is not as broad as the one that passed earlier in Maine, its earlier effective date and the size of the California economy make it consequential.

A recently signed California law will “significantly” limit the ability of marine container providers or terminals to impose detention and demurrage charges, law firm Cozen O’Connor said in an alert this month. The law, effective Jan. 1, outlines 10 situations in which container providers will not be able to begin or continue free time or impose fees on motor carriers and cargo owners “due to circumstances ostensibly beyond those parties’ control,” the firm said.

Panelists discussing the rise of protectionism in the U.S. disagreed on whether the decline in manufacturing jobs in the aughts was primarily due to trade, and whether a decline in manufacturing is something to be concerned about at all.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is removing the snail darter (Percina tanasi), a small freshwater fish native to the Tennessee River watershed, from the Endangered Species List, it said in a final rule released Oct. 4. An FWS review indicated that “the threats to the species have been reduced or eliminated to the point that it has recovered and is no longer in danger of extinction or likely to become in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future." the agency said. The delisting takes effect Nov. 4.

The Department of Labor is requesting comments to inform development of the government’s 2014 edition of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor and possible updates to the List of Products Produced by Forced or Indentured Child Labor, as needed, DOL said Oct. 4. DOL is requesting commenters provide information to its Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor and Human Trafficking by Dec. 16. Further, DOL also seeks comments to inform the next edition of the Worst Forms of Child Labor report, an annual review that fulfills a statutory mandate tasking the labor secretary with reporting findings with regard to Generalized System of Preferences countries’ implementation of international commitments to eliminate the “worst forms of child labor,” DOL said.

The Federal Maritime Commission awarded a $500,000 contract to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study intermodal chassis pools and whether they can be made more efficient. The study, mandated by the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, also will look at the advantages and disadvantages of current chassis pool models and whether the models “have aligned incentives in ownership, management, repair, and provisioning that lead to supply chain efficiency,” the FMC said. The study may result in suggestions to improve “communications, information sharing, and knowledge management practices across chassis pool models,” the commission said.

The Department of Labor's annual report on forced labor and child labor describes a global problem, from garments in Bangladesh, Brazil, Vietnam and Malaysia to tea and thread in India to gold from Venezuela, in addition to the sectors already associated with withhold release orders.

Linda Harris Crovella will serve as an administrative law judge of the Federal Maritime Commission, the FMC said this week. She previously served as an administrative law judge with the Social Security Administration. “The caseload of our Office of the Administrative Law Judge has sharply increased over the past two years resulting from more parties seeking relief to shipping disputes by using the formal complaints process,” FMC Chairman Daniel Maffei said. “Expanding the capabilities and resources of this critical function supports my priority that the Commission emphasize its enforcement work.”