Biden Administration to Curb Toxic Pollutants From Chemical Plants
Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman | April 7, 2023 | The New York Times
The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new regulation to significantly reduce hazardous air pollutants from chemical plants, a move that environmental advocates predicted would significantly reduce the health risks to people living near industrial sites.
The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule calls on chemical plants to monitor and reduce the amount of toxic pollutants released in the air, including the carcinogens ethylene oxide, an ingredient in antifreeze, and chloroprene, which is used to make the rubber in footwear.
The proposed rule would affect the vast majority of chemical manufacturers, applying to more than 200 facilities spread across Texas and Louisiana; elsewhere along the Gulf Coast; the Ohio River Valley; and West Virginia. It would update several regulations governing emissions from chemical plants, some of which have not been tightened in nearly 20 years.
The action is part of the Biden administration’s effort to address the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards facing communities that surround chemical plants. Known as fenceline communities, they are generally low-income, minority neighborhoods with elevated rates of asthma, cancer and other health problems.
“This is probably the most significant rule I’m experiencing in my 30 years of working in Cancer Alley,” said Beverly L. Wright, executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. She was referring to the nickname given to an 85-mile stretch of land along the Mississippi River that is home to more than 150 petrochemical plants and oil refineries.
Dr. Wright spoke in St. John the Baptist Parish, La., where Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator, had traveled to announce the new rule. Mr. Regan had visited St. John the Baptist Parish and other fenceline communities during a 2021 tour he called “Journey to Justice.”
The proposed regulation would mark the first time that the E.P.A. considered the cumulative impacts of more than one chemical plant on a community, rather than simply the effect of a single source of pollution.
“We are poisoned, and we are sick, and we are finally able to address some of the multiple chemicals that are poisoning us at the same time, causing rare and different cancers,” Dr. Wright said.
In February, the E.P.A. and the Justice Department sued a chemical manufacturer in St. John the Baptist Parish, Denka Performance Elastomer, arguing that it had been releasing unsafe concentrations of carcinogenic chloroprene near homes and schools. Federal regulators had determined in 2016 that chloroprene emissions from the Denka plant were contributing to the highest cancer risk of any place in the United States.
