mission: lower emissions

New EPA rule says 200 US chemical plants in Texas, beyond must reduce cancer-causing toxic emissions

The rule will apply to 218 facilities spread across Texas and Louisiana, the Ohio River Valley, West Virginia and the upper South. Photo via Getty Images

More than 200 chemical plants nationwide will be required to reduce toxic emissions that are likely to 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 delivering critical health protections for 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 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 harmful pollutants at the Denka Performance Elastomer facility 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 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 folks that are suffering from pollution and act to protect them. Today we deliver on that promise with strong final standards to slash pollution, reduce cancer risk and ensure cleaner air for nearby communities.”

When combined with a rule issued last month cracking 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 spread across Texas and Louisiana, the Ohio River Valley, West Virginia and the upper South, the EPA said. The action updates several regulations on chemical plant emissions 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 monumental step" to safeguard public health and the environment.

“Communities deserve to be safe. I've said this all along,'' Carter told reporters at a briefing Monday. "It must begin with proper regulation. It must begin with listening to the people who are impacted in the neighborhoods, who undoubtedly have suffered the cost of being in close proximity of 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 keep the confidence of the American people.''

The new rule will slash more than 6,200 tons (5,624 metric tonnes) of toxic air pollutants annually and implement fenceline 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 been releasing unsafe concentrations of 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.

Denka, a Japanese company that bought the former DuPont rubber-making plant in 2015, said it “vehemently opposes” the EPA’s latest action.

“EPA’s rulemaking is yet another attempt to drive a policy agenda that is unsupported by the law or the science,” Denka said in a statement, adding that the agency has alleged its facility “represents a danger to its community, despite the facility’s compliance with its federal and state air permitting requirements.”

The Denka plant, which makes synthetic rubber, has been at the center of protests over pollution 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 already has 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 if state officials were putting Black residents at increased cancer risk. But in June the EPA dropped its investigation without releasing any official findings and without any commitments 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 those in Cancer Alley, but communities in Texas and Puerto Rico and other areas that are threatened by these hazardous air toxic pollutants.''

While it focuses on toxic emissions, “by its very nature, this rule is providing protection to environmental justice communities — Black and brown communities, low-income communities — that have suffered for far too long,'' Regan said.

Patrice Simms, vice president of the environmental law firm Earthjustice, called the rule “a victory in our pursuit for environmental justice.”

“There’s always more to do to demand that our laws live up to their full potential,” Simms said, "but EPA's action today brings us a meaningful step closer to realizing the promise of clean air, the promise of safe and livable communities and ... more just and more equitable environmental protections.''

Trending News

A View From HETI

Rice Wind Energy had a strong showing at the DOE's 2025 Collegiate Wind Competition. Photo courtesy Rice University.

The student-led Rice Wind Energy team clinched second place overall at the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2025 Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC), which challenges students nationwide to design and build wind turbines, develop wind energy projects and engage in public outreach to promote renewable energy.

“The Collegiate Wind Competition is such an incredible opportunity for students passionate about sustainability to gain industry-applicable, hands-on experience in the renewable energy space,” senior and team vice president Jason Yang said in a news release.

The event was hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratories at the University of Colorado Boulder campus. Over 40 teams entered the competition, with just 12 advancing to the final stage. The competition comprises four core contests: connection creation, turbine design, turbine testing and project development.

Rice Wind Energy had the largest team with 26 students advancing to the final stage of the competition. It picked up a first-place win in the connection creation contest, and also placed third in the project development, fourth in turbine testing and fifth in turbine design contests.

“This accomplishment is a testament to our focus, teamwork and unwavering determination,” senior Esther Fahel, Rice Wind Energy’s 2024-25 president, said in a news release. “It’s a remarkable experience to have watched this team progress from its inception to the competition podium. The passion and drive of Rice students is so palpable.”

In the Connection Creation contest, the team hosted a wind energy panel with Texas Tech University, invited local high school students to campus for educational activities, produced a series of Instagram reels to address wind energy misconceptions and launched its first website.

The team also developed an autonomous wind turbine and floating foundation design that successfully produced over 20 watts of power in the wind tunnel. They were also one of just a few teams to complete the rigorous safety test, which brought their turbine to below 10 percent of its operational speed within 10 seconds of pressing an emergency stop button. It also designed a 450-megawatt floating wind farm located 38 kilometers off the coast of Oregon by using a multi-decision criteria matrix to select the optimal site, and conducted technical modeling.

“I am amazed at the team’s growth in impact and collaboration over the past year,” senior Ava Garrelts, the team’s Connection Creation lead for 2024-25, said in a news release. “It has been incredible to see our members develop their confidence by building tangible skills and lifelong connections. We are all honored to receive recognition for our work, but the entire experience has been just as rewarding.”

Rice faculty and industry sponsors included David Trevas and faculty advisers Gary Woods and Jose Moreto, Knape Associates, Hartzell Air Movement, NextEra Analytics, RWE Clean Energy, H&H Business Development and GE Vernova, Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, Rice Engineering Alumni and Rice Center for Engineering Leadership.

The BYU Wind Energy Team took home the overall first-place prize. A team from the University of Texas at Dallas was the only other Texas-based team to make the 12-team finals.

Trending News