The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, Washington, DC; www.epa.gov) has published a wide-sweeping anti-pollution plan designed to “dramatically reduce” toxic emissions from chemical plants and improve the health of people living in communities close to chemical plants.

For the most part, the emissions-cut mandates would target ethylene oxide (EtO) and chloroprene, but also take in benzene, 1.3 butadiene, ethylene dichloride, and vinyl chloride.

For all six pollutants, plant operators in future will need to identify the source of the pollution and make repairs if average annual air concentrations of any of the chemicals are higher than a specified action level under monitoring conditions. 

The EPA’s action, which follows up on administrator Michael Regan’s Journey to Justice visits to the US Gulf chemicals belt in 2021 and 2022, is aligned with President Joe Biden’s pledge to advance environmental justice in particular in the Gulf’s “Cancer Alley”, where the mostly Black and disadvantaged population is said to have an elevated cancer risk, which is attributed to the chemicals. 

Statistics show, the agency said, that long-term exposure to EtO and chloroprene can greatly increase the risk of certain types of malignancies, such as lymphoma, leukaemia, breast cancer, and liver cancer.

Following implementation of the new rules, which also foresee fenceline monitoring, emissions are expected to begin receding, with the ultimate aim of being slashed by 80%, or 5.6 t annually. If all goes to plan, an EPA assessment suggests that there is potential to reduce the incidence of elevated air toxins-related cancer by 96%. 

Washington’s initial concept would have required all plant operators to begin fenceline monitoring one year after the new rules take effect, but the start has now been pushed back to two years following consultations with producers who saw that timeframe as unrealistic. 

Neoprene producers, however, are to be required to begin monitoring 90 days after the legislation is in place. For all chemicals, the readings are to be published on the EPA’s WebFire web page.

The US environmental watchdog additionally said that it plans to tackle the reduction of emissions from other sources of EtO, including that from plants that make polyether polyols, as well as advancing EtO research. 

Even if the new rules are to apply nationwide, the government action primarily targets the chemicals corridor on the Gulf Coast. More than half of the 218 facilities affected by the new regulations are concentrated in the states of Louisiana and Texas, where the vast complexes of Asian chemical giants such as Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics (Taipei; www.fpc.com.tw), Japan-based Denka Performance Elastomer (Laplace, Louisiana; http://denka-pe.com) and South Africa’s Sasol (Johannesburg; www.sasol.com) dot the coastal landscape.

In 2022, the federal government began looking into the state of Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ; https://deq.louisiana.gov) practices for approving new chemical projects in St. John the Baptist Parish and the equally pollution-plagued St. James Parish, but its pace slowed when the administration froze plans to pursue justice from a civil rights perspective. 

Nevertheless, in 2023, the US Department of Justice sued Denka Performance Elastomer, a 70/30 joint venture of Japan’s Denka (Tokyo; www.denka.co.jp) and compatriot Mitsui, for emitting “unacceptable” levels of chloroprene. It said the company – which acquired the plant from DuPont (Wilmington, Delaware; www.dupont.com) – had failed to comply with EPA orders to curb emissions. The US chemical giant was also implicated in the lawsuit as it still owns the land on which the plant stands. 

In April, the EPA said it had finalised a USD 1.4 mn settlement with Sasol over alleged violations of the chemical accidents provisions of the Clean Air Act at the company’s plant in Westlake, Louisiana. The charges relate to a fire at the facility in October 2022, as well as a compliance evaluation in 2021.

The response to the federal government’s latest plans to protect local communities exposed to toxic emissions, in major part in the absence of stringent state and local rules, has been mixed.

Patrice Simms, vice president of the environmental law firm Earthjustice (https://earthjustice.org) praised the EPA plans as “a victory in our pursuit for environmental justice”, noting that it was only the second update of the 2015 Clean Air Act drafted by the administration of former President Barack Obama. Fenceline monitoring will be “crucial to ensure accountability and transparency”, he added.

Speaking for local advocacy group Concerned Citizens of St. John – St. John the Baptist being one of the Louisiana parishes most affected by toxic emissions – founder Robert Taylor said residents had “little hope” after the administration abruptly pulled plans for a civil rights investigation into anti-pollution offenses, but the new plans “are renewing our hope”. 

In contrast, the American Chemistry Council (ACC, Washington, DC; www.americanchemistry.com), which represents chemical producers, expressed criticism of the plans, accusing the EPA of using “a deeply flawed method” of determining the toxicity of ethylene oxide. The producers’ grouping said it “remains concerned” about the Biden administration’s “recent onslaught” of chemical regulations, adding that without a change of approach, the availability of critical chemistries will decline.

Denka called the EPA’s action “another attempt to drive a policy agenda that is unsupported”.