October, 13 2020, 12:00am EDT
Groups Sue Over Weak Emission Standards for Chemical Plants Linked to Cancer
EPA’s rule for organic chemical facilities allows toxic air pollution at levels dangerous for public health.
WASHINGTON
Today, 11 community, scientist, environmental, and environmental justice groups represented by Earthjustice sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over a weak national emission rule for hundreds of chemical facilities whose pollution is linked to cancer. The Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing, or MON rule, regulates toxic emissions for about 200 chemical plants across the country. These plants emit over 7,400 tons a year of dangerous air pollutants, including at least 2,000 pounds of ethylene oxide, an aggressive carcinogen. EPA updated the rule earlier this year after the national air toxics assessment showed this pollution is contributing to cancer risk hot spots in the United States.
Industrial plants covered by the MON rule handle chemicals used in the production of solvents, plastics and pesticides. During this process, potent carcinogens, like ethylene oxide, 1,3-butadiene, benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic fumes that people breathe, are dumped into neighboring communities. The MON rule leaves people in surrounding areas exposed to cancer risks of 200-in-1 million, twice the level EPA admits is unacceptable under the Clean Air Act.
"EPA's recognizes that communities are facing a blatantly unacceptable cancer threat from breathing toxic air every day, yet it does little to fix this problem," said Emma Cheuse, Earthjustice attorney. "It's unjust and wrong that the agency is again refusing to set standards that fully protect children and families living next to petrochemical sources."
MON facilities are located around the U.S., but especially concentrated in Texas and Louisiana, and disproportionately affect Black, Latino, and low-income communities. Other states with MON facilities include West Virginia, Illinois, and South Carolina. EPA's MON rule allows periodic, uncontrolled releases of chemical pollution, but communities need around-the-clock protection from toxic air. This rule allows facilities to spew fugitive emissions into communities without monitoring, and permits facilities to do so repeatedly, even if pollution levels are too high.
"Our neighborhoods are not sacrifice zones for petrochemical companies. EPA's national air toxics standards must be the strongest necessary to prevent cancers that EPA itself says the pollution from these chemical plants can cause. Those of us in Louisiana have seen first-hand the type of harm this type of pollution can do to communities," said Sharon Lavigne, founder of RISE St. James.
As communities push for monitoring and stronger rules for chemical plants, the petrochemical industry is expanding in places like Cancer Alley in Louisiana, which is already facing elevated cancer levels due to industrial fumes. In fact, Formosa Plastics' petrochemical complex in St. James Parish is still on the table while RISE St. James and their partners are fighting its illegal permits in Louisiana state court. The complex would include 14 plants just one mile from an elementary school in a predominantly Black neighborhood. A weak MON chemical plant rule is disastrous for the health of St. James Parish, particularly if plans for the Formosa complex are allowed to proceed.
EPA has known of the pollution and extreme health harms associated with MON plants for years; still, it chose inaction. According to federal law, EPA was supposed to review and update the national MON standards by 2014, but years later, the agency had still failed to meet the deadline. Communities affected by these emissions represented by Earthjustice, forced EPA to finish the rule through litigation and in 2017 a court ordered EPA to review and update this rule.
Earthjustice is representing RISE St. James, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, TX Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (t.e.j.a.s.), Air Alliance Houston, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Environmental Integrity Project, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Sierra Club. RISE St. James, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, and allied groups, represented by Earthjustice, are also fighting the illegal and dangerous air permits Louisiana issued to Formosa Plastics, and challenging another rule (ethylene production) that would apply to Formosa Plastics and similar petrochemical facilities as illegally weak.
More Quotes from our Clients:
"It is morally reprehensible that EPA is treating certain communities as disposable and left to suffer unacceptable cancer threats from exposure to petrochemical pollution. We will continue to fight to ensure that EPA's national air toxics standards are as strong as possible to save lives and prevent illnesses that EPA should not allow communities to face just because they live near chemical plants," said Michele Roberts, national co-coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform
"Today's suit is a step toward righting a grievous wrong. This Administration's weak MON rule does little to protect our health and instead leaves our communities at serious risk of cancer, both by the enormous emissions it allows and by pretending to be protective when in fact it's just the opposite. We are all at risk from these emissions, but Black people in Louisiana are in the bullseye. It's past time to change this situation, and we are filing suit today to do just that," said Anne Rolfes, LA Bucket Brigade.
"We cannot applaud EPA for doing what it thinks is the bare minimum, because the agency is not even doing what it knows is needed to protect people's health, based on the best available science. EPA also cannot avoid ensuring that facilities use up-to-date pollution controls, and practices, including real-time fenceline monitoring, to protect public health. People in Texas deserve the strongest protection available for our health," said Juan Parras, t.e.j.a.s Executive Director.
"The EPA rule does not go far enough to reduce toxic air pollution and goes too far in allowing loopholes, including an unlimited number of so-called unforeseeable accidents known as force majeure. The problem is not acts of God, it is acts of man," said Louis Zeller, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.
"EPA missed an opportunity in the MON rule to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to reduce the chemical burden on environmental justice communities exposed to the highest emissions of hazardous pollutants, including ethylene oxide. The science supports stronger action to limit emissions and expand monitoring for communities who continue to experience oppression due to social, health, and environmental disparities exacerbated by a global pandemic. EPA may be willing to abandon its mission and leave communities behind, but we won't allow it," said Genna Reed, Union of Concerned Scientists
"The EPA knows how many plastic/petrochemical and other factories are spewing their pollution into communities predominantly populated by people of color. The EPA knows that people living near these plants are going to have a dramatically increased risk of cancer because of the pollution. But it is clear that this EPA doesn't care at all about harm to our communities. It really is a travesty that we have to sue our Environmental Protection Agency for environmental protections that the agency itself knows should be in place," said Vivian Stockman, Executive Director at Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, based in West Virginia.
"Many communities face the insult of hosting more than one of these dangerous chemical facilities, yet USEPA still fails to strengthen the standards needed to protect communities from toxic air emissions they are releasing, which can cause particular harm to children and to women at risk of breast cancer," said Jane Williams, Chair of the Sierra Club National Clean Air Team.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
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Nearly All 600,000 Kids in Rafah 'Injured, Sick, Malnourished,' Says UNICEF
A full-scale Israeli assault on the crowded southern Gaza city "would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children."
May 02, 2024
"The children in Gaza need a cease-fire."
That's how Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), concluded a brief video Wednesday about the harrowing conditions across the Gaza Strip, particularly in Rafah, where about 1.5 million of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million residents have sought refuge from Israel's devastating assault.
The video was released nearly seven months into Israel's retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack—which has killed at least 34,596 Palestinians in Gaza, wounded another 77,816, and left thousands more missing—and as a full-scale Israeli assault of Rafah looms.
The war has already taken "an unimaginable toll," and a major military operation against the crowded southern Gaza city "would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe for children," Russell warned. "Nearly all of the some 600,000 children now crammed into Rafah are either injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities."
"Many have been displaced multiple times and lost homes, parents, and loved ones," the UNICEF chief noted. "There is nowhere safe to go in Gaza. Homes throughout the Gaza Strip lie in ruin. Roads are destroyed and the ground littered with unexploded ordnances."
"Rafah is also the main hub for the humanitarian response, which includes UNICEF, and the city has some of the last functioning healthcare facilities," she explained.
Israeli forces launched at least 435 attacks on health facilities or personnel during the first six months of the war, and just 10 of the enclave's 36 hospitals remain partially functional, according to the World Health Organization. As Common Dreamsreported Wednesday, thousands of Palestinian child amputees are struggling to recover due to the destruction of Gaza's healthcare system.
"UNICEF continues to call for the protection of all women and children in Rafah and throughout the Gaza Strip—and the protection of the infrastructure, services, and humanitarian aid they rely on," said Russell. "We repeat our calls for the unconditional release of all hostages in Gaza who need to be home with their children and families. The violence must end."
The agency's five core demands for Gaza are:
- An immediate and long-lasting humanitarian cease-fire;
- Safe and unrestricted humanitarian access;
- The immediate, safe, and unconditional release of all abducted children, and an end to any grave violations against all children;
- Respect and protection for civilian infrastructure; and
- Allow patients with urgent medical cases to safely access critical health services or leave.
As Russell called for peace in video form, James Elder, UNICEF's global spokesperson, penned a Wednesday opinion piece for The Guardian following his recent trips to Gaza. He began with a startling anecdote:
The war against Gaza's children is forcing many to close their eyes. Nine-year-old Mohamed's eyes were forced shut, first by the bandages that covered a gaping hole in the back of his head, and second by the coma caused by the blast that hit his family home. He is nine. Sorry, he was nine. Mohamed is now dead.
"From looming famine to soaring death tolls, the latest fear is the much-threatened offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza," he wrote. "Can it get any worse? It always seems to."
"Rafah will implode if it is targeted militarily," Elder stressed. "Water is in desperately short supply, not just for drinking but sanitation. In Rafah there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people. The situation is four times worse for showers. That is, around one shower for every 3,500 people. Try to imagine, as a teenage girl, or elderly man, or pregnant woman, queueing for an entire day just to have a shower."
On October 31, just weeks after the start of what the International Court of Justice has since determined is Israel's plausibly genocidal assault, UNICEF called Gaza a "graveyard" for children.
"Can it get any worse? It always seems to."
"Last month I saw new graveyards in Rafah being constructed. And filled," wrote Elder. "Every day the war brings more violent death and destruction. In my 20 years with the United Nations, I have never seen devastation like that I saw in the Gaza Strip cities of Khan Younis and Gaza City. And now we are told to expect the same via an incursion in Rafah."
Elder recalled that "in the north of the territory, close to where a UNICEF vehicle came under fire last month, a woman clutched my hand and pleaded, over and over, that the world send food, water, and medicine. I will never forget how, as I felt her grasp, I tried to explain we were trying, and she continued to plead."
"Why? Because she assumed the world did not know what was happening in Gaza. Because if the world knew, how could they possibly let this happen?" he continued. "How, indeed. The world has certainly been warned about Rafah. It remains to be seen how many eyes stay, or are forced, shut."
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Biden Condemned for Ahistorical and 'Politically Suicidal' Attack on Campus Protests
"Biden's claim that 'dissent must never lead to disorder' defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics that civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters, and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice."
May 02, 2024
President Joe Biden faced immediate backlash Thursday for characterizing pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have erupted on university campuses across the country as lawless and violent, a narrative likely to further alienate the thousands of students who have joined peaceful protests against Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza in recent weeks.
In brief, unscheduled remarks delivered from the White House, Biden acknowledged that "peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues."
But he then proceeded to cast recent campus demonstrations as abhorrent, using instances of property damage to broadly paint student protesters as out of control—giving a pass to police forces and pro-Israel mobs that have brutally attacked peaceful encampments.
Biden, who has armed Israel's military to the hilt, also conflated trespassing and disruptions of day-to-day campus activities—including classes and graduations—with violence, saying, "None of this is a peaceful protest."
"Dissent must never lead to disorder," the president said, ignoring the long history of disruptive civil rights and anti-war protests in the U.S. "There's the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos."
Watch Biden's remarks in full:
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a civil rights attorney and national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said Thursday that "President Biden's claim that 'dissent must never lead to disorder' defies American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the tactics that civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters, and anti-apartheid activists used to confront injustice."
"And if President Biden is truly concerned about the conflict on college campuses, he should specifically condemn law enforcement and pro-Israel mobs for attacking students, and stop enabling the genocide in Gaza that has triggered the protests," Mitchell added.
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote following the president's remarks that "the best speech of Biden's campaign was in June 2020, amid the nationwide protests against the murder of George Floyd."
"He could've given a very similar speech today, if only he thought the same rights and principles applied to Palestinians," Duss added. "In June 2020, Biden criticized violence but also refused to paint the protests with that broad brush. He acknowledged the root causes, the pain driving them. He could've made some effort to do the same today, instead he chose to amplify a right-wing caricature."
Countering suggestions that criticism of Biden could harm his reelection chances against former President Donald Trump, Duss pointed to an old social media post in which he explained: "One of my concerns here is that Biden is undermining his re-election. In addition to being morally and strategically awful, I think his Gaza policy is alienating and demobilizing constituencies he will need."
At the end of his speech, a reporter asked Biden whether the mass demonstrations on college campuses have led him to reconsider his approach to Israel's assault on Gaza, which to date has been unconditionally supportive even in the face of horrific Israeli war crimes.
"No," Biden said in response to the reporter's question.
"Apparently Biden is not swayed by the mass killing of children, international law, or an election as a growing number of Americans are appalled by his policies," Assal Rad, an author and Middle East analyst, wrote in reply to the president.
Biden to young people: go fuck yourselves, I’m sticking with Israel and its genocide.
Absolutely surreal, sad, politically suicidal, grotesque. https://t.co/96RIQE2ZO5
— Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) May 2, 2024
Justice Democrats called Biden's speech "shameful," writing that "as campuses have unleashed police on students—he blames protesters as the problem and ignores the violence they've faced."
"If dissent was crucial to our democracy," the progressive group added, "you would spend more time listening to their demands than lying about their tactics."
Biden's address came hours after Los Angeles police launched a violent attack on pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA, where a pro-Israel mob brutally assaulted student protesters just a day earlier.
In a statement earlier this week, College Democrats of America endorsed the Gaza solidarity protests that have swept the nation and warned Democratic leaders that each day they "fail to stand united for a permanent cease-fire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party."
"We condemn those politicians, like MAGA Republicans and many other lawmakers, for smearing all protesters as hateful when, according to reports, the overwhelming majority of protests are peaceful," said the College Democrats.
In a floor speech on Wednesday, Sanders called out his colleagues who "are spending their time attacking the protesters rather than the Netanyahu government, which has caused and has created this horrific situation."
Sanders noted that the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) "was arrested 45 times for sit-ins and protests, 45 times for protesting segregation and racism."
"Protesting injustice and expressing our opinions is part of our American tradition," said the Vermont senator. "And when you talk about America being a free country, well, you know what, whether you like it or not, the right to protest is what American freedom is all about."
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Fossil Fuel Companies Use Enclosures to Hide Planet-Heating Methane Flares
"If you enclose the flare, people don't see it, so they don't complain about it," said one expert. "But it also means it's not visible from space by most of the methods used to track flare volume."
May 02, 2024
Fossil fuel companies are using a technology known as enclosed flaring to conceal dangerous methane emitted during the production of fossil gas, a report published Thursday revealed.
The Guardian's Tom Brown and Christina Last reported that fossil fuel producers in countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway "appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions, and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas."
As the World Bank, European Union, and others have been using satellites to track flaring—the burning of unwanted fossil gas—in an effort to reduce the harmful practice, fossil fuel producers have been adopting enclosed combustion technology to eliminate unwanted methane.
While the industry promotes enclosed combustors as a clean, safe, and efficient solution for eliminating unwanted emissions and ensuring regulatory compliance, critics claim they're a way for gas producers to conceal flaring—which releases five times more methane than previously believed, as Common Dreamsreported in 2022.
"Enclosed combustors are basically a flare with an internal flare tip that you don't see."
"Enclosed combustors are basically a flare with an internal flare tip that you don't see," Tim Doty, a former regulator at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, told The Guardian. "Enclosed flaring is still flaring. It's just different infrastructure that they're allowing."
"Enclosed flaring is, in truth, probably less efficient than a typical flare," Doty added. "It's better than venting, but going from a flare to an enclosed flare... is not an improvement in reducing emissions."
Eric Kort, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, told The Guardianthat "if you enclose the flare, people don't see it, so they don't complain about it."
"But it also means it's not visible from space by most of the methods used to track flare volumes," he added.
According to a March 2023 report published by the World Bank and Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, an estimated 140 billion cubic meters of gas was flared globally in 2022, a 3% decrease from the previous year. The top 10 countries by flare volume that year were Russia, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Venezuela, the United States, Mexico, Libya, Nigeria, and China.
Flaring releases carbon dioxide and toxic pollutants including carcinogenic chemicals. Despite these dangers, energy and environmental regulators allow the venting of fossil gas, which is up to 90% methane, into the atmosphere.
Methane—which has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere—is emitted during the production and transportation of oil, gas, and coal, as well as from municipal landfills and livestock.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) published a report last October warning that immediate cuts to methane gas pollution caused by fossil fuel production are critical for limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C, the more ambitious objective of the Paris agreement.
The need is urgent. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the three most critical heat-trapping gases in Earth's atmosphere—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—once again reached record levels last year, with methane increasing by 10 parts per billion to 1,922.6 ppb.
Responding to The Guardian's reporting, U.K. Green parliamentary candidate Catherine Read said that "oil and gas companies are hiding their 'flaring' operations because laws are being brought in to reduce emissions of [greenhouse gases] from waste gas that can't be sold at a profit."
"They don't care about us, our children, or nature," she added, "only profit above all else."
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