Affiliates

A coalition led by environmental justice organizations filed a suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today for refusing to issue long-overdue rules to prevent hazardous-substance discharges that threaten public health and contaminate waterways. Across the United States, more than 100,000 facilities make, store, or use hundreds of hazardous chemicals linked to reproductive, developmental, and neurological harm – including benzene, hydrogen sulfide, sulfuric acid, hydrogen cyanide, and hydrochloric acid. “For generations environmental justice communities have lived next to some of the most hazardous facilities in the country that threaten the bodies of water our families rely on to survive. Now more than ever we must prioritize creating safe and healthy places where all of our children can thrive and grow.” said Michele Roberts, National Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform. “The EPA’s do-nothing approach leaves us one incident away from a catastrophe.”

Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, or TEJAS, has advocated for decades for stronger chemical regulations like this one. “We remember family, friends, and neighbors who we lost as a result of health-related issues because of highly hazardous air pollutants, including carcinogens like ethylene oxide and 1,3-butadiene,” TEJAS representative Deyadira Arellano told EHN. “We owe it to our loved ones to act on environmental justice and call for enhanced inspections and enforcement at facilities that repeatedly violate emissions rules.”

Nalleli Hidalgo, a community outreach liaison with Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, attended the signing last week, after meeting with Regan on his listening tour. She told ProPublica she was overwhelmed by the people missing from the room who were not alive to witness this achievement. “We have lost too many loved ones as a result of bureaucratic inertia,” she said, noting that the EPA has long been required by law to update its risk standards for these chemicals. “Our communities should not have to wait one more day for fence line monitoring to take effect.” For years, Texans like Hidalgo, living near chemical plants, have asked the agency to measure what they’re breathing in.

Today, following years of advocacy from environmental justice organizations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule to significantly reduce emissions of toxic air pollution from an estimated 200 chemical plants, in an effort to reduce elevated cancer risks experienced by fenceline communities. "It has taken nearly a whole generation of hard work to arrive in DC to make this announcement,” said Nalleli Hidalgo, Education Liaison with Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (tejas), who introduced EPA Administer Michael Regan at today’s White House signing event. “As we take this moment in, we remember that we are not here as individuals but as a community standing in solidarity as we witness a key moment in rulemaking to reduce the daily harm our communities face, especially frontline communities that live directly across from HON facilities.”

The rule addresses a critical vulnerability in the protection of the country's waterways and communities. Thousands of facilities that manufacture, use and store some of the most dangerous chemicals brush up against waterways or are in flood-prone areas. The new policy comes after numerous disasters affecting drinking water supplies, wildlife habitats, and environmental justice communities that experience the brunt of extreme weather supercharged by climate change.  “We are thankful that this administration is finally taking long overdue action to protect workers and communities against chemical disasters. Communities of color and the poor, who are experiencing the worst of the climate crisis, are also on the front lines of the fight against policies that permit billions of pounds of pollution and concentrate the most dangerous industries in our communities” said Michele Roberts, National Co-Coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA). “While we’re glad to see this rule taking steps in the right direction, we will continue to call on EPA to truly prevent disasters by transitioning away from inherently dangerous chemicals and processes as outlined in the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals.”