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On October 16, 2024, Coming Clean and the Union of Concerned Scientists published The Community Guide to Cumulative Impacts, a resource to drive policy changes at the state and local level to protect overburdened communities from cumulative chemical and pollution harms. The Guide is available in English and Spanish. The Guide was co-developed with over eight local organizations across the country, including Los Jardines Institute, Clean + Healthy, and COPAL (Communidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina), that have long advocated for holistic policies that can reduce stressors on community health. The Guide defines cumulative impacts as “the combined chemical and non-chemical stressors on a community’s health, well-being, and quality of life.” It compares various metrics and mapping tools that can help environmental justice communities show policymakers that their community is experiencing multiple, reinforcing health stressors, such as proximity to many highly polluting facilities releasing multiple chemicals, lack of access to affordable healthcare and housing, and language barriers.

Over 125 organizations in the Coming Clean network agree that reducing cumulative impacts on environmental justice communities is one of our collective policy goals, as outlined in the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals. We know that environmental justice communities are not exposed to only one polluting facility or one health-harming pollutant at a time. When reviewing permits for polluting facilities, regulators should have to take into account the combined harm of existing industry on community health, and should have the authority to deny permit applications from facilities that add to disproportionate pollution burdens and existing health stressors. Passing cumulative impacts legislation at the state and local level is one promising way to make this possible. In 2021, Coming Clean released a policy brief by Drs. Nicky Sheats and Ana Baptista on state cumulative impacts legislation that passed in New Jersey, which we hoped would serve as a model for other states and cities. Since then, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Connecticut have also passed cumulative impacts laws. Cities and counties are also pursuing creative ways to assess and reduce cumulative impacts, while involving impacted community members in decision making. Could your state or city be next? Read our Community Guide to Cumulative Impacts! 

Expanding the list of chemicals to bring more facilities under federal oversight has become a priority for environmentalists, explained Maya Nye, the federal policy director at Coming Clean, an environmental health nonprofit focused on chemical industry oversight. Being subject to Risk Management Program requirements, Nye said, “would have required [BioLab] to think about, ‘What is the emergency response plan? What may lead to a chemical disaster?’” Environmentalists fought hard to strengthen the EPA’s Risk Management Program to account for the impacts of extreme weather on chemical accidents. Thanks to the regulations finalized this year, facilities covered by the program will be required to consider, and map out, the potential hazards posed by climate change. But BioLab’s facilities, which fall outside of the program, will not.

NEW FACTSHEET In spring 2024, after a multi-year collective advocacy effort, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the “Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention” rule which updated the Risk Management Program (RMP) rule “to further protect vulnerable communities from chemical accidents, especially those living near facilities in industry sectors with high accident rates.” You can read our high-level summary takeaways here.

NEW FACTSHEET Environmental health and farmworker advocacy organizations are urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to adhere to proven science when assessing the safety of chemicals regulated under its statutory authority, and warn against the misuse of New Approach Methods (NAMs) to designate pesticides and other harmful chemicals as safe. A new fact sheet explains that NAMs -  which are mostly unproven and include biochemical, molecular, and cell-based assays and computational models widely promoted by the chemical industry as an alternative to rodent tests - “frequently understate or incorrectly evaluate hazard and risk with potentially harmful consequences for workers, families, wildlife and ecosystems.”"We are alarmed that EPA is relying on these new, unproven tests to justify reducing protection from pesticide exposure. Farmworkers and their children will bear the brunt of this reckless decision." stated Anne Katten of California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, who coordinates Coming Clean’s collaborative team on Farmworker Health and Justice. Read the factsheet in English and Spanish.

A challenge to a federal assessment of the cancer risk for a chemical produced in Louisiana used to manufacture goods ranging from antifreeze to detergents has been rejected by a U.S. court of appeals. The challenge of the Environmental Protection Agency cancer risk assessment for ethylene oxide by a Texas petrochemical manufacturer, the American Chemistry Council and the Louisiana Chemical Association was rejected on Tuesday by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It ruled that EPA correctly rejected an alternative study by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that found less cancer risk. Among the environmental groups that intervened in the legal challenge on behalf of EPA are the New Orleans-based Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, and RISE St. James, as well as national groups the Environmental Integrity Project, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Coming Clean and EJHA's General Strategy Meeting to Advance the Louisville Charter for Safer Chemicals was held in Los Angeles, California July 16-18, 2024, co-hosted by Physicians for Social Responsibility LA. Over over 45 Coming Clean and EJHA member organizations attended, focusing on the need to center our strategies on deeply principled collaboration and solidarity with the most impacted communities. 

On May 29, 2024, representatives of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions attended Dollar General’s annual shareholders meeting in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, urging the company to commit to eliminating chemicals of concern from its supply chain. After the company failed to make any new commitments to strengthen its chemical policy or expand its restricted substance list, representatives from the campaign delivered a letter to company executives urging additional action, and announced that they were actively testing Dollar General products for chemicals linked to health conditions like cancer, learning disabilities, and reproductive harm.

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a proposal this week to ban a controversial pesticide that is widely used on celery, tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables. The EPA released its plan on Tuesday, nearly a week after a ProPublica investigation revealed the agency had laid out a justification for increasing the amount of acephate allowed on food by removing limits meant to protect children’s developing brains. In calling for an end to all uses of the pesticide on food, the agency cited evidence that acephate harms workers who apply the chemical as well as the general public and young children, who may be exposed to the pesticide through contaminated drinking water.

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.”

Last week, Biden administration officials finalized a rule they said would significantly reduce cancer-causing air pollutants, lowering cancer risk and advancing environmental justice goals. But the move by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency left out a Black West Virginia community yet again.  While the rule will target facilities surrounding communities historically overburdened by toxic air pollution, it doesn’t cover the chemical production category that has disproportionately affected one of West Virginia’s only two majority-Black communities. “It’s actually a positive development, but it doesn’t fully address the issues in Institute,” said Maya Nye, a former Kanawha Valley resident and member of the Charleston-based People Concerned About Chemical Safety. 

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.

Chemical safety advocates praised the EPA’s new requirements but added that the agency needs to go further, including by adding a notoriously explosive farm fertilizer – ammonium nitrate – to the list of chemicals that should require companies to develop risk management plans. Advocates also say EPA should have included more safety requirements and mandates for air monitoring at the fence lines of major facilities so nearby residents can see what chemicals are being released in real time.  “We’ve needed this rule for a long time,” said Maya Nye, executive director of chemical safety advocacy coalition Coming Clean. But she added that “additional measures are needed. Read more in Oil and Gas Watch News. 

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.”

Coming Clean is seeking an Information Technology Specialist to provide website and technical support and optimize the IT and related activities and systems for the organization. Top-level duties include administering and troubleshooting the organization’s information technology and systems; providing day-to-day support and problem-solving of IT issues for staff; supporting domain and website management; and training staff on IT systems, programs, and hardware. The Information Technology Specialist is a well-rounded generalist, who is able to competently handle a wide variety of IT related administrative tasks and issues.

We're advocating for a Farm Bill that reduces pesticide use, protects farmworker, and builds food sovereignty. In 2023, we wrote letters to both Agriculture Committees that were endorsed by 50 organizations; and sent members to D.C. where they held 23 in-person meetings with members of Congress that we complemented with another five virtual meetings.  We continue our farm bill work this year, with a focus on supporting CFAC member organizations, including Alianza Nacional de Campesinas. Learn about the marker bills we support, and the status of the farm bill in this update blog. 

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.” 

On March 1, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published updates to its Risk Management Plan (RMP) rule with stricter regulations for chemical accident prevention. The new rule is a result of listening sessions by the EPA in which industry, advocates, scientists and fenceline residents voiced their concerns. According to the new rule, facilities handling hazardous materials must consider safer technologies and practices, and the possibility of events caused by climate change in their emergency management plans. When a chemical incident occurs, the facility will have to undergo third-party testing to find the root cause and what could have prevented it. Any disconnection or disabling of air monitors in an emergency would be in violation of this rule and must be reported to the EPA. As a result, backup power options must be explored to prevent lack of emissions readings in events that result in the loss of power. To read a version of this story in Spanish click here. Haz clic aquí para leer este reportaje en español.

Pressure ramped up on the EPA last year after a network of environmental and economic justice organizations reported that hazardous chemical accidents have been occurring almost every day, on average, in the United States, exposing people to dangerous toxins through fires, explosions, leaks, spills and other types of releases. The network applauded the EPA’s actions this week. “We’re glad that EPA stood its ground despite strong industry pressure and required more [Risk Management Program] facilities to report on safer chemicals and processes that could be implemented to prevent chemical disasters,” Maya Nye, federal policy director for the environmental health collaborative Coming Clean, said in a press release. “This establishes an important precedent.” The Coming Clean report found hundreds of accidents happening each year, with the majority tied to the fossil fuel industry. Acknowledging the frequency of incidents, the EPA previously told The New Lede that over the past 10 years the agency has “performed an average of 235 emergency response actions per year, including responses to discharges of hazardous chemicals or oil.”