Rule curbing pollutants a lifesaver for area
In 2021, Michael Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, set out on a 550-mile road trip, starting in Jackson, Miss., and heading along the Gulf Coast into Texas as part of an environmental justice tour, visiting places like Cancer Alley in Louisiana. When he got to Houston, Regan met with leaders from Kashmere Gardens to hear about the cancer clusters there. He took a “toxic tour” with Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services that led him from the East End to the Ship Channel. And he visited with Furr High School students who shared their own experiences of living through natural disasters that quickly became environmental ones for vulnerable communities. Such listening tours are good press but in the case of this administration, good policy, too.
“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,” Regan said last Tuesday, finalizing a new rule that curbs six cancer-causing pollutants from chemical plants that produce such things as paints, plastics and pesticides. The changes will cut toxic air pollution by 6,200 tons annually, according to the agency. That factors in cuts to pollution emitted from chemical plant flaring — a routine yet dirty practice that spikes with every plant shutdown and startup amid big storms.
Almost half of the 200 affected plants nationwide are in Texas, including 32 in the Houston area, many situated along the Ship Channel. The new rule also requires companies to step up air quality monitoring for fence line communities, a major win for advocacy groups that have been fighting for better data for years. Areas such as Baytown, Deer Park and La Porte will breathe easier, maybe even live longer, thanks to this new rule.
“We have the largest petrochemical complex in the United States,” Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee wrote to the editorial board, “This will impact Harris County probably more than anywhere else in the country.”
Menefee joined in a multistate coalition supporting the new rule and has pushed back against Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempts to tie up another recently introduced EPA rule regulating particulate matter.
With this latest rule, some industry groups have also pushed back, citing the costs of implementation, which the EPA estimates would be around $150 million annually until 2038. These companies supply critical products. Ethylene oxide, for example, goes into computer chips, which are a near ubiquitous part of modern life, and it helps sterilize medical equipment, the head of the Texas Chemistry Council pointed out to the Texas Tribune.
But Dr. Inyang Uwak, policy director for Air Alliance Houston, thinks that the balance sheet has to include the benefits of this change.
“The cost of implementing the final rule is less than 1% of their annual national sales,” Uwak said, citing the EPA’s own analysis of the facilities, most of which are owned by large corporations.
Meanwhile, the EPA found that communities within 6 miles of facilities covered by this rule would experience a 96% reduction in cancer risk due to air toxics. There are a whole host of other benefits, including less smog in a metropolitan area that’s been among the most severe violators of federal standards.
But a 96% reduction is life-changing, lifesaving. The benefits hardly seem calculable.
“A lot of these plants are in neighborhoods that are already overburdened by multiple sources of pollution and have elevated risks of cancers when compared to other parts of Harris County,” Uwak said.
“I am optimistic that this is going to be helpful,” she added.
Rule-making can seem boring and bureaucratic, and it is. Progress can seem to come in inches, and it does. But this change, as part of a broader EPA effort to clean up our air and communities, is both a long time coming for the largely Black and brown communities most exposed to these pollutants and a real step toward a healthier, cleaner and more environmentally just Houston area.
EPA found that some may see 96% cut in cancer risk tied to air toxics