WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 200 chemical plants across the country will have to reduce toxic emissions that are likely to cause cancer under a new rule issued Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency. The rule furthers President Joe Biden’s commitment to environmental justice by providing critical protections to the health of communities burdened by industrial pollution from ethylene oxide, chloroprene and other dangerous chemicals, officials said.
Areas that will benefit from the new rule include majority-black neighborhoods outside of New Orleans, which EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited as part of his Journey to Justice tour in 2021. The rule will significantly reduce emissions of chloroprene and other harmful pollutants at the Denka Performance Elastomer facility in LaPlace, La., the nation’s largest source of chloroprene emissions, Regan said.
“Every community in this country deserves to breathe clean air. That’s why I took the Journey to Justice tour to communities like St. John the Baptist Parish where residents have borne the brunt of toxic air for far too long,” Regan said. “We promised to listen to the people who suffer from pollution and act to protect them. Today, we are delivering on that promise with strong final standards to reduce pollution, reduce cancer risk and provide cleaner air for nearby communities.”
When coupled with a rule issued last month aimed at ethylene oxide emissions from commercial sterilizers used to clean medical equipment, the new rule will reduce emissions of ethylene oxide and chloroprene by nearly 80 percent, officials said.
The rule would apply to 218 facilities located in the United States — more than half in Texas or Louisiana. The 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 regulations on emissions from chemical plants that have not been tightened in nearly two decades.
Democrat Troy Carter, whose Louisiana district includes the Denka plant, called the new rule a “monumental step” to protect public health and the environment.
“Communities deserve to be safe. I’ve said that all along,” Carter told reporters at a briefing Monday. “It has to start with proper regulation. It has to start by listening to the people who are affected in the neighborhoods that have undoubtedly 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 was “critically important that measures like this are demonstrated to maintain the confidence of the American people.”
The American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers, said it was reviewing the rule but criticized the EPA’s use of what it called a “deeply flawed” method for determining the toxicity of ethylene oxide.
“We also remain concerned by the recent onslaught of chemical regulations enacted by this administration,” the group said in a statement. Without a different approach, “availability of critical chemicals will decrease” in the U.S., harming the country’s supply chain, the ACC said.
The new rule will reduce more than 6,200 tons (5,624 metric tons) of toxic air pollutants annually and introduce monitoring of the fence, the EPA said, addressing health risks in surrounding communities and promoting environmental justice in Louisiana and other states.
Ministry of Justice last year sued Denka, saying it released dangerous concentrations of chloroprene near homes and schools. Federal regulators found in 2016 that chloroprene emissions from the Denka plant contributed to the highest cancer risk of any site in the United States.
Denka, a Japanese company that bought the former DuPont rubber plant in 2015, said it “vehemently opposes” the EPA’s latest action.
“EPA’s rulemaking is yet another attempt to push a political agenda that is not supported by law or science,” Denka said in a statement, adding that the agency claims its facility “poses a danger to its community despite compliance with the facility with its federal and state air permit requirements.”
The Denka plant, which produces synthetic rubber, has been at the center of pollution protests in majority black communities and EPA efforts to curb chloroprene emissions, particularly in the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor, an 85-mile (137-kilometer) industrial region. 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 launch a civil rights investigation into the plant to determine whether state officials were putting black residents at increased risk of cancer. The agency initially found evidence of discrimination, but in June it closed its investigation without releasing official findings and without any commitments from the state to change its practices.
Regan said the rule issued Tuesday is separate from the civil rights investigation. He called the rule “very ambitious,” adding that officials have taken care to ensure “that we protect all of these communities, not just those in Cancer Alley, but communities in Texas and Puerto Rico and other areas that are threatened by this dangerous air toxic pollutants.”
Although it focuses on toxic emissions, “by its very nature, this rule provides protections for environmental justice communities — black and brown communities, low-income communities — that have suffered for too long,” Regan said.
Patrice Sims, vice president of the environmental law firm Earthjustice, called the rule “a victory in our quest for environmental justice.”
Monitoring the fence for six toxic air pollutants — ethylene oxide, chloroprene, vinyl chloride, benzene, 1,3-butadiene and ethylene dichloride — will be critical to ensuring accountability and transparency, Sims and other advocates said. The new rule marks only the second time the EPA has mandated fence monitoring in air toxicity standards under the Clean Air Act.
“For years, we’ve watched our families and neighbors suffer from diseases like cancer because of poorly regulated emissions,” said Robert Taylor, founder of Concerned Citizens of St. John, a local advocacy group.
After the EPA closed its civil rights complaint, “we felt little hope that any government could protect us from industry,” Taylor said. The new rule “renew our hope,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Michael Phillis in St. Louis contributed to this story.
