WASHINGTON — More than 200 chemical plants nationwide will be required to reduce toxic emissions that could cause cancer under a new rule issued Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency. The rule advances President Joe Biden’s commitment to environmental justice by providing critical health protections for communities burdened by industrial pollution from ethylene oxide, chloroprene and other hazardous chemicals, officials said.
Areas that will benefit from the new rule include majority-Black neighborhoods outside New Orleans that EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited as part of his 2021 Journey to Justice tour. The rule will significantly reduce emissions of chloroprene and other pollutants harmful at the Denka Performance Elastomer plant in LaPlace, Louisiana, the largest source of chloroprene emissions in the country, Regan said.
“Every community in this country deserves to breathe clean air. That’s why I brought the Journey to Justice tour to communities like St. John the Baptist Parish, where residents have borne the brunt of toxic air for too long,” Regan said. “We promised to listen to people suffering from pollution and take action to protect them. Today, we deliver on that promise with tough final standards to reduce pollution, reduce cancer risk and ensure cleaner air for nearby communities.”
When combined with a rule issued last month that cracks down on ethylene oxide emissions from commercial sterilizers used to clean medical equipment, the new rule will reduce ethylene oxide and chloroprene emissions by nearly 80%, officials said .
The rule will apply to 218 facilities across the United States, more than half in Texas or Louisiana. Plants are also located in two dozen other states, including Ohio and other Midwestern states, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and throughout the South, the EPA said. The action updates several chemical plant emissions regulations that have not been tightened in nearly two decades.
Democratic Rep. Troy Carter, whose Louisiana district includes the Denka plant, called the new rule “a huge step” to safeguard public health and the environment.
“Communities deserve to be safe. I’ve always said that,” Carter told reporters during a briefing Monday. “It has to start with proper regulation. It has to start by listening to the people affected in the neighborhoods, who undoubtedly have suffered the cost of being in close proximity to chemical plants – but not just chemical plants, chemical plants that don’t follow the rules.”
Carter said it is “critically important that measures like this are demonstrated to maintain the trust of the American people.”
The new rule will reduce more than 6,200 metric tons (5,624 metric tons) of toxic air pollutants each year and implement fence monitoring, the EPA said, addressing health risks in surrounding communities and promoting environmental justice in Louisiana and other states .
The Justice Department sued Denka last year, saying it had released dangerous concentrations of chloroprene near homes and schools. Federal regulators had determined in 2016 that chloroprene emissions from the Denka plant contributed to the highest cancer risk of any place in the United States.
Denka, a Japanese company that bought the former DuPont rubber manufacturing plant in 2015, said it “vehemently opposes” the EPA’s latest action.
“EPA regulation is yet another attempt to drive a political agenda that is not supported by law or science,” Denka said in a statement, adding that the agency said its structure “poses a danger for its community, despite the facility’s compliance with its federal and state air permit requirements.
The Denka plant, which produces synthetic rubber, has been at the center of protests over pollution in predominantly black communities and EPA efforts to reduce chloroprene emissions, particularly in the Mississippi River chemical corridor, a region 85-mile (137-kilometer) industrial area known informally as Cancer Alley. Denka said it has already invested more than $35 million to reduce chloroprene emissions.
The EPA, under pressure from local activists, agreed to open a civil rights investigation of the plant to determine whether state officials were putting black residents at greater cancer risk. The agency initially found evidence of discrimination, but dropped the investigation in June without releasing official findings and without any commitment from the state to change its practices.
Regan said the rule issued Tuesday was separate from the civil rights investigation. He called the rule “very ambitious,” adding that officials took care to ensure “that we protect all of these communities, not just the ones in Cancer Alley, but the communities in Texas and Puerto Rico and other areas that are threatened by these dangerous toxic emissions into the air”. pollutants”.
While it focuses on toxic emissions, “by its very nature, this rule provides protections to environmental justice communities — Black and Brown communities, low-income communities — that have suffered for too long,” Regan said.
Patrice Simms, vice president of environmental law firm Earthjustice, called the rule “a victory in our pursuit of environmental justice.”
“There is always more to be done to demand that our laws live up to their full potential,” Simms said, “but today’s EPA action takes us a significant step toward realizing the promise of clean air …safe and livable and…fairer communities and more equitable environmental protections.”
Monitoring six toxic air pollutants – ethylene oxide, chloroprene, vinyl chloride, benzene, 1,3-butadiene and ethylene dichloride – will be crucial to ensuring accountability and transparency, Simms and other advocates said. The new rule marks only the second time the EPA has mandated monitoring of air toxicity standards under the Clean Air Act.
“For years, we have seen our families and neighbors suffer from diseases, such as cancer, because of underregulated emissions,” said Robert Taylor, founder of Concerned Citizens of St. John, a local advocacy group.
After the EPA closed its civil rights complaint, “we had little hope that any government could protect us from industry,” Taylor said. Regan’s commitment to fighting chemical emissions and the announcement of the final rule “are renewing our hope,” he added. “They are a starting point for reducing toxic emissions and saving children in our community.”